Motorist trying to help snatch theft victim causes her death instead
Tragic incident: The police forensic team inspecting the Proton Wira and collecting evidence.
SHAH ALAM: Two Good Samaritans thought they could help a woman who was being attacked by armed snatch thieves but ended up ramming into the thieves and woman and causing her death.
Realising that their good deed had gone terribly wrong, they rushed her to a private hospital but it was too late to save her.
Ampang Jaya OCPD Asst Comm Amiruddin Jamaluddin said AirAsia employee Shahrinawati Abu Bakar, 30, had parked her car and was walking towards the entrance of her condominium in Taman Cempaka, Ampang Jaya, after working the night shift when two armed suspects on a motorcycle pounced on her at about 2.45am yesterday.
“Two men who were passing by in a Proton Wira car noticed the attack. The driver reversed the car at high speed and rammed into the suspects but he also hit Shahrinawati,” he said when met at the Selangor police headquarters here yesterday.
He said the suspects got up and escaped on their Yamaha LC machine while the two men immediately rushed the victim to the hospital in Kuala Lumpur.
Shahrinawati who succumbed to her injuries.
“Unfortunately, Shahrinawati was pronounced dead at around 3am,” he said, adding that her body was later been sent to Hospital Kuala Lumpur for a post-mortem.
ACP Amiruddin said the cause of her death had been determined as ruptured heart with chest injury which was consistent with the impact of a motor vehicle collision.
He said the police had taken statements from the two men, two security guards and the victim’s sister, adding that the case had been classified under Section 394 of the Penal Code and Section 41(1) of the Road Transport Act 1987 for causing hurt during a robbery and reckless driving respectively.
“It was unfortunate that the driver rammed into Shahrinawati. He was only trying to help her,” ACP Amiruddin said.
At the funeral of Shahrinawati at the Bukit Sungai Seputih Muslim cemetery in Kuala Lumpur last night, her family and fiance Mohd Azrul Kamarudin were still in shock over her tragic death.
Mohd Azrul said it was difficult to accept that Shahrinawati was gone.
“We just got engaged in April this year and we were to be married in December,” he said.
He described Shahrinawati, the eldest of four sisters, as a fun-loving, cheerful and caring person.
“We will all miss her dearly,” he said.
Meanwhile, ACP Amiruddin said the police were now focusing their attention on catching the two suspects and pursuing several viable leads, including analysing CCTV footage to enhance the identification of the motorcycle number plate used by the suspects.
Anyone with information on the case should contact the police hotline at 03-2052 9999 or visit the nearest police station.
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Shahrinawati's mother is inconsolable at the funeral. The Malaysian Insider pic by Afif Abd Halim. August 29, 2013.
Airline executive Shahrinawati Abu Bakar's death early today was even more tragic than previously thought when new facts emerged this evening.
Police this evening said she was not slashed to death but died after a motorist who tried to go after the men who had just robbed her hit Shahrinawati instead.Ampang police chief Assistant Commissioner Amiruddin Jamaluddin said it was the motorist and his friend who rushed Shahrinawati to the hospital but she succumbed to her injuries.
"The motorist had witnessed the two men trying to rob the victim. He then reversed his car to stop the two from escaping on a motorcycle but accidentally hit the victim instead," said Amiruddin.
Initial reports suggested that Shahrinawati died from slash wounds inflicted by the robbers but investigations showed otherwise.
The two robbers escaped on a black Yamaha LC motorcycle but it was learnt that one of them dropped his wallet.
The incident occurred in front of the Palm Villa City Garden Condo in Taman Cempaka, Ampang, where the victim stayed with her three younger sisters.
AirAsia X officer Shahrinawati, 30, was attacked by the two men as she got out of her car at about 2.45am.
Best friend Siti Mariam Mohd Hanif, 23, an AirAsia X ground executive, described her as an excellent team leader.
"She was strict when it came to work but that was how she earned everyone's respect. She was a natural problem-solver," Siti Mariam said, adding that the last time she met her friend was at a staff briefing yesterday afternoon.
She was informed of her death by Shahrinawati's fiance Mohd Azrul Kamarudin, a security officer with AirAsia X.
Shahrinawati's father, Abu Bakar Jemain, 53, was calm when met at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital mortuary.
"This is fated. Let police handle the investigations," he said.
Abu Bakar, a businessman from Miri, said he last met his daughter on Tuesday at her condo.
"I come down often to KL to meet my daughters."
Friends and colleagues were at the Nurul Hidayah mosque in Pandan Indah this evening to pay their last respects.
Among them was AirAsia X chief executive officer Azran Osman Rani.
Azran paid tribute to Shahrinawati in his email to staff, saying "she was a promising young talent" who had been sent to Melbourne to get international experience.
The Source - TheStar, Mymetro
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