Motorist trying to help snatch theft victim causes her death instead

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 Abu Bakar, 30, was killed after two good samaritans hit her while they rammed into two snatch thieves who attacked her early morning on Aug 29.

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.