Politicians, community leaders welcome Mas Selamat's arrest
By Hasnita A Majid, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 08 May 2009 2216 hrs

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SINGAPORE : Politicians and community leaders welcomed news of Mas Selamat bin Kastari's capture, but added the public must always be vigilant to any potential terrorist activities.

Authorities have been looking for Mas Selamat since his escape more than a year ago.

Now that he has been caught, there was a sigh of relief all round.

Coordinating Minister for National Security Prof S Jayakumar said Mas Selamat is a dangerous man and is glad the fugitive has been apprehended.

The arrest also underscores the excellent relations Singapore's security agencies have with Malaysia.

"It's a tribute to the professionalism of the intelligence agencies who persevered and worked across borders with their partners to secure his eventual arrest," said S Iswaran, Senior Minister of State for Trade & Industry, and Education.

Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs and Education, Masagos Zulkifli said: "When Mas Selamat escaped from detention at Whitley, the Malay-Muslim community was just as alarmed as the community at large. And now that Mas Selamat has been caught, a sense of relief is as much felt by the Malay community as much as has been felt by the community at large.

"This reflects the fact that the Malay community is mature enough to understand that whatever threatens the nation also threatens them, and therefore, we have arrived in a sense of being a single-minded about how we need to address and look at the threat of terrorism."

The challenge now is to ensure that others don't fall into what's called a "self-radicalised terrorist."

Dr Teo Ho Pin, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Law and Home Affairs, said: "We see a growing trend in terms of self-radicalised terrorist. This is something we are very concerned with, especially people who have learnt the wrong religious teachings through the internet.

“That's why the Home Team and the security agencies are working with many stakeholders, especially religious organisations, to ensure that proper religious teachings are brought to the people, so that individuals will not be misled by the people and learn the wrong ideology, thus resulting in them becoming terrorists.

"My concern is that we should have more upstream intervention programmes to ensure that the community is safe through proper education - be it in mainstream education or religious education - so that the present generation and the future generation will understand religion better, to understand how to care for one another and to unite the community."

Community leaders said despite Mas Selamat's arrest, the public should not let their guard down. This is because the terror threat remains real, especially as terror cells still exist in the region. - CNA /ls