Kedah man runs amok and kills neighbour’s two young children
KEDAH: A man ran amok and killed his neighbour's two young children after a quarrel with their father.
Muhammad Hafis Idris, aged 14 months, was slit in the throat while his four-year-old sister Nurul Hanim Idris had slash wounds all over her body.
The tragedy happened in Kampung Kuala Sungai at about 9.30pm on Tuesday after the children were already in bed.
"There were noises coming from outside," said the victims' mother Norhashilawati Yusof, 37.
"I was about to step out of my room to see what was happening when a man rushed in and tried to slash me with two parangs. He missed.
"Then he went to the bed where my children were sleeping and started slashing them with the parang," said Norhashilawati.
SLEEPING
Her other son, aged seven, was sleeping with his grandmother in an adjacent room.
Their fisherman father was away at sea at the time.
Apparently, the neighbour flew into a rage for no known reason that night.
"He is our neighbour and a friend of my husband.
"Once he came to my house armed with a parang and quarrelled with my husband, who didn't lodge a police report.
"I don't know if there was any misunderstanding between him and my husband that led to him killing two of my children," Norhashilawati said outside Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital's mortuary yesterday.
Kedah CID chief Senior Asst Comm Mior Faridalathrash Wahid said the suspect was overpowered by neighbours shortly after the attack.
He said the man had a criminal record related to drugs, adding that the case was being investigated for murder.
Fisherman Omar Bakar, 53, said the man, in his 50s, was involved in a fist fight with another villager some 30 minutes before the attack on the children.
"The villager sustained a jaw injury and lodged a police report.
"Last year, he (the suspect) was also involved in a quarrel with other villagers. He used a parang to chase them, but no report was lodged," Omar said. - THE STAR
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