KOTA KINABALU: The marine police have denied a survey which claimed that most fish bombing cases in Sabah were committed by children.
Marine Police Force Region 4 commander Assistant Commissioner Mohamad Pajeri Ali said based on statistics of those cases, such a thing was not true.
He said there were only four juveniles out of 77 people arrested throughout Sabah and Labuan for fish bombing and possession of explosives between 2018 and last year.
The age range for the four young people is between 16 and 18.
“Based on the statistics, it showed that the involvement of children in fish bombing is inaccurate.
“Any underage offenders can be arrested as juvenile cases. But for now, we will be handing the case over to the Fisheries Department,” he told the New Straits Times.
Legally, the term child may refer to anyone below the age of 18. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines child as "a human being below the age of 18 years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier".
Mohamad Pajeri was responding to a statement by Sabah Agriculture and Food Industry Minister Datuk Junz Wong yesterday, in which he revealed that studies indicated that most culprits in fish bombings cases in Sabah were children and they cannot be arrested due to their young age.
Meanwhile, a source however said it is undeniable there were children involved in fish bombings in the state, but it is difficult to be sure about their exact age especially if they are stateless and paperless.
“There is no doubt that the children aged below 18 might be doing it. There are occasions whereby the kids were seen going out fishing at the sea with someone older.
“It is obvious that the kids might pick up the skill and knowledge easily (of making explosives and conducting the fish bombing) as they grow up,” he said, adding that there are three possibilities of why those kids involved in such dangerous activities.
He said the children are either doing it just for fun, to feed their families or doing it for commercial demands.
The source added that for fish bombing, it is important to understand and address the socio-economic issues among the community especially stateless people.
“They are facing some stress in the society whereby the people have limited access to job opportunity, getting arrested, being placed at the detention centres and deported, among other things.”