Hostage drama leaves residents tense
TUARAN: Residents of Taman Telipok Ria are still shaken by Sunday’s hostage incident, with many taking turns to look after each other.
They stayed up all night cleaning up the mess in a flat unit on the fourth floor, used by a man to hide after he took a 2-year-old girl hostage at knife-point.
Kasman Rahim, 25, who is the the flat unit owner’s son, said they had to take out most of the furniture, with many pieces of kitchenware scattered all over the unit.
“We spent hours cleaning the room, especially the bloodstains, with the help of neighbours. Many of our glasses and plates were broken. There are also bullet holes on the kitchen wall,” he said at the scene.
Kasman said he had never expected such an incident would take place and the residents now remained on high alert after the hostage drama.
He said many took turns looking after the victim’s house, adding that his father along with other witnesses had gone to the police station in the morning.
Marsilyn Abdul Musa, 24, said she was sleeping when she heard a commotion outside her flat unit on the third floor.
“It was zohor time and I heard (the victim’s) mother screaming. At first, I thought it was just a beating case but the situation got tense.
“I immediately rushed to the fourth floor and saw a man pointing a knife at a girl’s neck. I stayed to help calm the mother... she collapsed several times,” she said.
Marsilyn was one of the res- idents who managed to capture pictures of the man holding the child. These pictures have since gone viral on social media and WhatsApp.
She said, during the incident, the girl remained calm although she was bleeding from the neck.
“The man had taken her to kitchen and we had thrown mattresses to the ground as we feared he would throw the child out of the window,” she said.
In the event on Sunday, a team of police surrounded the flat and negotiated with the man to release the girl.
The man, however, refused and continued pointing the knife at the girl’s neck.
At one point, about 5.30pm, the man had tried to throw the girl out of the window, prompting police to fire several shots, killing the man on the spot. Police immediately rescued the injured girl, who was then taken to a hospital by ambulance.