PJ Selatan UMNO vice-head denies helping fire victims to gain support





PETALING JAYA, April 12 (Bernama) -- Petaling Jaya Selatan UMNO Division vice-head Datuk Abdul Mutalif Abdul Rahim regretted the allegations made in the social media that his efforts to assist the fire victims involving a workshop were merely aimed at becoming a candidate and gaining votes in the General Election.

In fact, Abdul Mutalif who is also the Taman Medan Assistant Coordinator of the Federation of State Legislative Assemblies, regretted that the victims helped were said to be foreigners whereas they were Malaysian citizens.

"As a community leader, I merely helped. But I am sad and regretted over the allegations that said I helped the Bangladesh nationals to win votes," he said.

He disclosed this to reporters after lodging a police report at the Petaling Jaya District Police Headquarters, here to refute the slander made against him today.

Abdul Mutalif said the fire incident referred to was the one that occurred at 8am on April 9 at a motorcycle workshop in Taman Medan, and he had gone down to assist the next day after being informed by a cousin of the victim on the incident.

Yesterday, he was surprised when he found out that he had been criticised and a video recording was viralled in the social media website stating that he had given aid to seek for votes.

Abdul Mutalif said the fire victim, Azmi Abdul Malik, 41, was a Malaysian national and had now become a political victim as a result of the video recording that was viralled.

He said that Azmi, who has three children, was now facing a difficult situation and the family was going through a very hard life as two of his children had health problems.

His 11-year-old child was a diabetic patient and another five-year-old child was having a heart problem.

Abdul Mutalif claimed that the irresponsible acts were carried out by several Facebook account owners who urged members of the public to share the video entitled 'please viral this video so that this idiot is famous'.

He also urged the Deputy Prime Minister who is also the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to take action against them who had spread slanders and deliberately creating chaos before the 14th General Election.

-- BERNAMA