KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's top cop has again rubbished claims that senior police officers were protecting GISB Holdings (GISB) amid a probe into the company.
"There is no truth to these claims," Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Razarudin Husain told the New Straits Times.
He was commenting on claims made on social media that a former senior police officer had ties with GISB leaders.
A photo of the now-retired police officer with GISB leaders accompanied the post on Telegram.
NST has reached out to the retired officer in the photo.
Razarudin today described the claims as "malicious and baseless".
"Our personnel involved are giving their all to ensure that investigations into the company are conducted in a transparent, fair and thorough manner."
He said police have detected other social media posts claiming former senior officers were protecting GISB.
Razarudin said the police must be given the space to conduct investigations and bring anyone who broke the law to justice.
"First we received comments that we were being overzealous in our action, then we are blamed for supposedly protecting the company."
"We hope the public can give us some time to properly investigate this case."
GISB has been at the centre of police investigations after raids on Sept 11 on 20 welfare homes allegedly operated by them led to 402 children being rescued.
Subsequent screenings of the children revealed many of them suffered physical and emotional injuries. During investigations, police also revealed that 13 of the children had also been sodomised.
GISB has since denied the allegations of child exploitation and sexual abuse.
Yesterday, Razarudin said the probe into the company may lead to action under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma).