Home minister Hamzah Zainudin said this could number up to 1,000 roadblocks per day compared to the 930 mounted currently.

“Yesterday, I noticed that there were still many vehicles on the roads and I have discussed with the Inspector-General of Police (Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani) to increase the number of roadblocks in certain areas, especially in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor.

“I also made inspections in Penang and found the same situation happening in certain areas,” he told a media conference after a surprise visit to check on compliance to standard operating procedures (SOPs) at a shopping centre here today.

Hamzah said he was still not satisfied with the number of vehicles on the road despite a total lockdown enforced nationwide since June 1.

On SOP compliance at shopping centres, Hamzah wants more compliance teams at these premises to ensure the Covid-19 infection curve is flattened.

“As we are well aware, Malaysians tend to frequent shopping centres during the weekends as a leisure activity.

“I want to tell the people to just stay home unless they really need essential items, but if they are visiting these premises just to meet and gather, then I want the SOP teams to beef up their monitoring,” he said.

On that score, Hamzah also apologised to the people if there had been rough treatment on the part of SOP compliance team members, saying that they had been under lots of stress of late due to many cases of violation.

“They only act that way to ensure the people strictly adhere to the SOPs,” he said.