By Gladys Tay

JOHOR BARU: Senai assemblyman Ong Kow Meng caused a stir in the state assembly here when he called another Yang Berhormat stupid and accused the police of being in cahoots with crime syndicates.

Speaker Datuk Ali Hassan reprimanded Ong for labelling Bukit Batu state assemblyman Cheong Chin Leong "bodoh" and "biadap" and told him to retract his other remarks.

He told DAP's Ong that a lawyer like him should know the proper words without offending other people.

"You cannot call someone stupid. You can use a better word such as kurang bijak," said Ali, who insisted that Ong withdraw his words.

Two assemblymen, Datuk Abd Hamid Rahman (BN - Machap) and Ng See Tiong (BN - Parit Yaani), also stood up to tell Ong to retract his words while others started banging on the table insisting that Ong do the same.

Cheong then stood up and told Ali that Ong had broken the assembly rules by using such language.

Ong's remarks came about following Cheong's request on Monday that the state assembly take action against the DAP assemblyman for publicly asking Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman to resign during a party function in April.

However, Ali said he could only take action against Ong if he made those remarks in the House.

Initially, Ong insisted that he had freedom of speech but he later retracted his words.

However, he caused another stir soon after when he spoke on security in the city.

He was again reprimanded by Ali for saying that there was a "secret relationship" between police and crime syndicates.

Ali also told off Ong, who made accusations about corruption and abuse of power by policemen.

He said that such allegations by Ong could offend students who were observing the state assembly meeting then, as they might have parents in the police force.

There were about 40 Form Six students from SMK Tan Sri Jaafar Alba in Kota Tinggi who were present at the assembly yesterday.

Ong said police had declared that the crime rate in Johor Baru had declined but based on media reports, it was still rampant compared with Singapore.

"Security in Singapore and even Thailand is better than ours," he said to laughter from the assembly.