This is because the government has to date been unable to produce any evidence to establish the existence of such a militant religious group with international terrorist links and implicated in murder, attempt murder, mayhem and robberies.
Kelantan Mentri Besar, Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, whose son Nik Adli is one of the ten detained under the ISA, had also questioned as to whether KMM itself exists or is a figment of the government’s imagination.
PAS President Datuk Fadzil Noor said yesterday that the party had no knowledge of the term KMM used by the government and police and that it was just a figment of imagination and malicious slander targetting a certain group of people, using the issue to link certain people with the militant Taliban movement in Afghanistan. (The Sun)
The PAS leadership, however, should publicly clarify a Chinese newspaper report yesterday quoting a PAS activist and former PAS Youth Central Committee member admitting the existence of KMM, that it does not have more than 100 members but denying that it was militant or part of an international network (Nanyang Siang Pau) as such a report has given rise to confusion and even credibility problems.
The government, nonetheless, must discharge its duty to prove to the satisfaction of Malaysians the existence of KMM as a militant religious group linked to international terrorists group involved in murder, attempt murder, mayhem and robberies and that it was not a pure figment of Barisan Nasional imagination to serve its political agenda to undermine the Opposition.
(8/8/2001)