A smile, then the shots
Trio injured in mafia-style attack
KUALA LUMPUR: Three masked men drove up to a car in which three friends were resting. And, with a smile, they fired a hail of bullets into the car, seriously wounding two of them in what appeared to be a mafia-style assassination attempt.
K. Ashok, 18, and M. Tirusilan, 23, sustained multiple gunshot wounds and are fighting for their lives at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.
The driver of the car P. Kesevan, 29, was hit in the leg and underwent surgery to have the slug removed at the Selayang Hospital.
Scrapyard worker Kesavan said from his hospital bed later that he saw the gunman smile before he felt the bullet hit him in the thigh.
He and two friends were resting in a parked car at the Gardenia Court apartments in Gombak here at 9.30pm on Sunday when the smiling gunman and two others drove into the gated and guarded residential area and fired at them.
He said he was sitting in the driver’s seat when he saw a 4WD vehicle driving pass. The driver of the vehicle smiled at me as they passed us and I smiled back.
“Then, he reversed the vehicle and parked in front of us,” added Kesavan.
“He smiled at me again and before I realised what was happening there were gunshots,” he said.
“I quickly scrambled out of the car,” said Kesavan. “I could hear my friends screaming.”
Kesavan said he and his friends had gone to the apartments to meet his boss.
“My boss told me to meet him at his brother’s apartment as he was attending a family function there that night.
Kesavan said the gunmen fired at the passenger side first, where his boss usually sat. He believed the gunman were targeting his boss or the man’s brothers.
Police, however, believe the assailants were targeting the passengers of the car based on the manner in which most of the shots were fired in the 9.30pm incident on Sunday.
Gombak OCPD Asst Comm Abdul Rahim Abdullah said a suspect was arrested within 24 hours.
He said police had identified the remaining two suspects and were closing in on them.
“We believe they had waited for their target in the parking lot,” he said, adding that police recovered 17 spent shells and four slugs at the scene.
ACP Abdul Rahim said police had obtained footage from the CCTV but the images were not very clear.