SHAH ALAM: Selangor police have conducted 12 raids and arrested seven individuals in the Klang Valley in connection with the poisoning case from alcohol consumption on Tuesday. Selangor police chief Datuk Mazlan Mansor said the operation was conducted in grocery shop premises in Bukit Kemuning, Taman Seri Muda and Kampung Baru Subang, Section U5 in Shah Alam; Taman Sri Gombak, Taman Daya and Taman Sri Ehsan in Kuala Lumpur and Bandar Rinching, Semenyih in Kajang. He said the seven individuals, aged in their 40s, comprised the operators and their employees, including two Myanmar nationals and three Indian nationals. “In the raids, 1,030 bottles of whiskey and 1,767 cans of beer of various brands were seized.
“The arrests and seizures were made under Section 135 of the Customs Act,” he told a media conference at the Selangor Contingent Police Headquarters here yesterday. A sked on the possibility that all the premises had obtained the supply of alcohol from the same supplier, Mazlan said the matter was still being investigated.
“After news of the alcohol poisoning were reported in the media, several grocery shops immediately closed probably because they do not want to be involved or wanted to get rid of the alcoholic drinks that can implicate them to the offence,” he said. Meanwhile, Mazlan said as of 8am yesterday in Selangor, the death toll from the alcohol poisoning was 17 people while 24 victims were still being treated and nine others allowed to be discharged from the hospital. He said the police were still awaiting the official report on the cause of the victims’ death from the hospital. Meanwhile in Kuala Lumpur, police have arrested two men and seized 23 bottles of alcohol during raids in three premises selling alcoholic drinks in and around Sentul yesterday. Sentul District Police chief ACP R.Munusamy said four of the deaths were recorded around the federal capital.
Two men were detained in a premises in Taman Sri Kuching, here at about 11am yesterday, a local in his 60s and a Bangladeshi national in his 40s, who took care of the premises. “Following the raid, police seized 23 bottles of whisky comprising various brands and worth more than RM300,” he told a media conference at the Sentul District Headquarters here yesterday.
He said police also conducted a raid in Jalan Ipoh and Jinjang Utara but there were no arrests or seizures of any items. Out of the four victims who died since September 14 at several locations believed to be from poisoning after consuming alcoholic drinks brought from a shop in Batu 3, Jalan Ipoh, he said two were local men and another two foreigners. – Bernama
