SEPANG, July 4 — Sepang police came to the rescue of 14 occupants of a house who ran out of food while undergoing quarantine in Taman Bunga Raya here.
Acting on information from a sister to an occupant of the house who contacted the Sepang district police headquarters (IPD) at about 8 pm yesterday, members of the Sepang IPD MPV Unit arrived at the house at about 9.15 pm carrying 16 packets of ‘nasi berlauk’ (mixed rice) for the occupants.
Sepang police chief ACP Wan Kamarul Azran Wan Yusof said according to the information received, the occupants of the house who were factory workers in Bandar Baru Salak Tinggi were placed under home quarantine because some of them tested positive for COVID-19 and subsequently ran out of food due to lack of money.
“When placed under quarantine, they don’t work. Even when they were working they didn’t earn much. Now that they can’t work, surely they don’t have much money left,” said Wan Kamarul Azran when contacted today, adding that he had also alerted the issue to the Social Welfare Department (JKM).
He said that the Sepang police had also delivered breakfast to the occupants of the house this morning using the IPD’s welfare allocation to Taman Murni, which is currently placed under the Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO).
He said although the occupants of the house did not raise the white flag, which was an initiative mobilised by the people to help those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the police would provide assistance once they had the information.
On Friday, Selangor police chief Datuk Arjunaidi Mohamed, was reported to have said that he supported the white flag campaign and had instructed police personnel to identify affected residents to enable immediate assistance to be delivered, as well as encourage those facing such problems to contact the nearest police station.
Asked why the residents did not contact the Sepang IPD themselves, Wan Kamarul Azran said it was possible that they had difficulties contacting the authorities.
“We don’t want to say much, we just want to provide immediate assistance and after that JKM will take further action such as providing food basket assistance or the like,” he said.
He said that he was informed that the JKM had already sent fresh and dry food such as chicken, vegetables, eggs and chillies to the occupants of the house.
Wan Kamarul Azran said he had instructed police station chiefs under the administration of the Sepang IPD to seek and obtain information if there were residents who faced problems such as ran out of food.
“If there is a white flag being raised, we will look for a white flag and we will send assistance either from NGOs (non-governmental organisations) or JKM,” he said.
