Four men pounce on patient in daring attack

by **Pollathavan** Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:59 am

MALACCA: Police are looking for four men who carried out a bold parang attack on a 29-year-old patient at a private hospital here early yesterday morning.
The incident was said to have taken place at about 12.15am at the government-run Putra Specialist Hospital along Jalan Tun Sri Lanang where victim G. Suriamurthy was being warded for a broken left leg.
The four men managed to dupe a hospital staff member into allowing them to visit the victim despite the late hours by claiming that they had travelled a long way to visit the patient.
Not suspecting anything amiss, the nurse on duty accompanied the four men to the victim’s room, which he shared with several other patients.
Minutes later, she was shocked when she heard shouting and yelling from the room.
She rushed in to see the four men dashing out.
Suriamurthy, who managed to ward off the attackers, escaped serious injuries but sustained deep gashes in his right hand and legs.
The four men, two armed with parangs and a knuckle-duster, managed to escape in a car parked near the hospital.
Suriamurthy, a welder from Peringgit, said he was warded at the hospital on Friday after he broke his leg in a motorcycle accident in Bukit Serindit.
“I was asleep but woke up when I heard other patients scream. I was shocked to see four men standing around my bed and hurling abuses before two of them whipped out parangs and began to attack me,” he said, adding that he managed to block the attacks with his hands before kicking one of the assailants with his uninjured leg.
When contacted, state deputy OCCI Supt Hamdan Majid confirmed the incident and said that police were trying to find out who the assailants were and the motive for the attack.
He said initial investigations indicated the attack could have been prompted by a misunderstanding between the victim and one of the assailants.