VOCR

20th April, 2010

Kuala Lumpur

Two Chin young men, Biak Van Peng 24 years and Zam Peng 28 years of age were kidnapped, put hostage and badly beaten up by the drug addicted local gangsters at the suburban area of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on last Saturday.

"The incident started while the two guys hailing a cab at Bukit Jalil bus station at around 6:30 pm , a man with proton car approached them and asked them to give a ride at the same charge with other taxi. The two guys with overloaded three bags decided without hesitation to onboard because of unable to carry their heavy bags and could not take other cabs.

"After driving for five minutes, the car was suddenly stopped and a person standing on the pavement came into the car and sat beside us .On the way, they began to threaten us and asked us to give them all the money we got .They took RM-180 from us but still weren't satisfy with the money and took us to a house believed to be the driver's house which is at outskirt of Kuala Lumpur and arrived there at around 11:30 at night. As soon as we got there, we were punched, kicked, beaten up and stroke with a pipe and threatened us to be beaten till death unless we made calls to our relatives and friends to send them RM 2000 for the redemption," the two victims said.

The two hostages made calls to their relatives several times but no one could send the demanded money to save them as it was already midnight and the banks had already been closed so that it was unavailable to transfer the money.

Biak Van Peng showing his scars of toture by the thugs at Chin refugee community office in Kuala Lumpur

"Soon after we called our relatives, they stopped beating us for a while as they had got words of promises to be given the amount of money they demanded through the phone. Even thought they were having some drugs, we were guarded strictly throughout the night. At early in the morning around 5:30, we were once again forced to make calls to our relatives, friends and the entire contact's name listed in our phonebook both in abroad and domestic to remind them of our situation," Biak Van Peng said.

"We did calls as we were badly beaten and intolerable of their assaults. Soon after they stopped beating us as our relatives transferred RM 2000 in their credit card but they broke their promise of letting us go instead they asked another RM 2000 to our relatives. As they no longer had been assured of the money to be sent for our ransom, they continued beating us with the pipe till we were nearly fainted. At around 3pm, we were forced to take a shower as we were about to be released by their hired taxi only after our relatives transferred another RM 1000, saying that both of you would be sent home because we had already done our job," Zam Peng cited.

"A Chin Disciplinary Action Committee chairman, Lal Siam Mawi had already lodged a report to the police since the gangs told him both hostages would be released after they received the money. As soon as the hostages were brought home alive by the taxi, the Chin refugee committee immediately took them to the hospital for their medication.

The police are investigating the case and hunting the perpetrators after the doctor confirmed that Mr. Zam Peng was severely wounded and one of his ribs is nearly broken.

This breaking news has become as an alert to the chin refugee living in KL for it has once again strengthened the fact that we, the vulnerable chin refugee are the most targeted people of the local gangster as their prey.

"This is a shocking and sporadically incident among the Chin refugees in Malaysia and we all need to be vigilant when we hired a taxi and hanging out with our friend all the time" CCF chairman warned the church members on Sunday.

This incident happened to these vulnerable people is really an embarrassing and aggressive matters. Any operation to swipe-out this heartless people is necessary to carry out and the government should more concenterate to probibit this criminal movements in the country for it could also happen to the local people.