Police swift action nets three robbery suspects

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SILENT PARTNERS: The two speech impaired friends of the suspect being led away to the police lock-up.

KUCHING: Swift action by police led to the arrest of three persons, including two who are speech-impaired, following a gang robbery in which a young woman was relieved of her handbag by four armed men.

The theft took place around 12.30am at a park at the Batu Kawa New Township when a group brandishing a wooden club, a samurai sword and an iron rod approached the 19-year-old victim, who was with two male friends at the time.

The robbers, described as heavily intoxicated, attempted to grab the woman’s handbag from the basket of her motorcycle, but were stopped by one of her male friends.

Angered, the group assaulted the man with the wooden club before fleeing with the handbag, which contained a mobile phone and RM250 in cash.

The victim and her friends made their way immediately to the nearby Batu Kawa police station and reported the incident, prompting a CID team to scour the area for the culprits.

Within several minutes, policemen came across three individuals rummaging through a handbag at the Batu Kawa
light industrial zone and arrested them before they had a chance to flee.

The bag, along with a mobile phone inside, was recovered in their possession and later identified as the victim’s although there was no sign of the cash.

Further investigation revealed that only one of the three – a 22-year-old from Sadong Jaya – was directly involved in the gang robbery.

The other two, who are both speech-impaired, were found to be his friends who apparently met up with the suspect after the crime and joined him in going through the contents of the handbag.

However, the two – a 22-year-old from Kota Samarahan and a 21-year-old from RPR Batu Kawa – were detained along with the suspect pending further action.

Police are currently on the lookout for the remaining three robbery suspects still at large.