A 48-year-old woman was brutally beaten by a robber inside an elevator at a Mass Rapid Transit station in Cheras district, Kuala Lumpur, on Thursday morning.
At 6:45am at the Taman Mutiara MRT station, the woman entered the elevator alone, then was followed by a man, according to a statement issued by the head of the Kuala Lumpur Criminal Investigation Department on Friday, the New Straits Times reported.
The incident lasted about 56 seconds and was captured by a surveillance camera. The man swung his arm at the woman when the doors closed, causing her to fall to the floor.
He continued to punch her and eventually snatched her handbag while grabbing her hair.
When the elevator door opened, he paused to press the close-doors button before continuing to hit the victim with both fists and swung her handbag at her several times.
The man ran off after the elevator opened for the third time, fetching the victim’s purse, which contained her identity card, bank cards and 400 ringgit (US$98) in cash. He ditched the handbag on the elevator floor after taking its contents and ran off, leaving the woman with multiple injuries on her body and bruises on her forehead.
Kuala Lumpur police took statements from three witnesses to facilitate their investigation, and appealed to the public for information regarding the suspect, believed to be a local Malaysian man, who was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans at the time of the attack.