BUKIT MERTAJAM: Police have arrested five Myammar nationals, one of them a woman, to assist investigations into the murder of a man who was found dead with a knife lodged in his stomach at a flat unit in Taman Pulasan here yesterday.
Seberang Prai Tengah district police chief Assistant Commissioner Nik Ros Azhan Nik Ab Hamid said the five, aged between 27 and 40, were staying in the same house together with the victim.
“They have been remanded for two weeks to assist investigations into the case.
“We are also checking their passports to ascertain a few things,” he said today.
R. Manogaran, 55, was found dead with a knife lodged in his stomach at a flat unit in Taman Pulasan here yesterday afternoon.
There were 13 stab wounds on the front part of the victim’s body and rib, and one stab wound on the back.
Police, who were called to the scene, found the victim sprawled in the living room.
A witness at the scene, a van driver, had revealed that the victim supplied Myanmar workers to several factories in Bukit Tengah.
The victim, who was single, was staying in the three-room unit with at least 10 Myanmar nationals.
According to the witness, the victim told him that he was heading home after sending the foreigners to work at 10am yesterday. Four hours later, the witness received a call from the factories, informing him that the victim had failed to send food to the workers, resulting in the workers refusing to work.
The witness then went to the victim’s house, only to find him dead inside.
Police have since seized a 33cm vegetable knife, a chisel, the victim’s blood-stained pants, a hat, a blood-stained bath towel, seven swabs of blood and two sets of fingerprints in the bathroom door.