PETALING JAYA: The man who brutally attacked and robbed a woman inside a lift at an MRT station last Thursday has been identified.

Kuala Lumpur police chief Comm Datuk Seri Mazlan Lazim said the identity of the suspect was established after police compared closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage at the crime scene with video recordings from a convenience store nearby that had been robbed 15 minutes earlier.

Mazlan said police believe the suspect held up staff at the convenience store just before he attacked the woman at the MRT station.

“We now have his address and we are confident that we will be able to arrest him soon.”

In the incident at the Taman Mutiara MRT station, the suspect followed the 48-year-old victim into the lift and then punched and kicked her as soon as the doors closed.

The woman fell and the suspect snatched her handbag and landed more blows on her before fleeing with her purse.

The victim, who lost her MyKad, ATM cards and RM400 in cash, suffered injuries to the head and body and was given outpatient treatment at a hospital.

CCTV footage of the attack has been widely shared on social media, with the public expressing outrage and shock over the brutality of the attack.

Criminologist Dr P. Sundramoorthy urged the public, especially women travelling alone, to be more vigilant even when they are at “safe” places that have CCTVs.

He said CCTVs are only a deterrent in certain situations and “does not put a stop to criminal activities”.

Perpetrators could cover their faces to avoid being identified on CCTV, or may be bold and aggressive enough that they just don’t care, he added.

Sundramoorthy said while the time and location of an incident could be ascertained by reviewing the CCTV recordings, quality recording was essential to identify the culprits.

“The emphasis is on quality. If the images are not good enough, the evidence would not hold up in court,“ he said, adding that a CCTV camera focussed only at a general area and from a distance would not help identify perpetrators.

MRT operator Prasarana said additional personnel from its “Special Action Force” would be deployed at crime-risk locations at its stations.

A Prasarana spokesman said there are plans to enhance CCTV coverage in elevators, adding that lifts at all stations along the MRT Sungai Buloh-Kajang line, LRT Kelana Jaya line and the newer section of the LRT Sri Petaling line are equipped with CCTVs.

Meanwhile, Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation senior vice-chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye said the purpose of CCTVs was to facilitate investigations by law enforcement agencies by providing better images to identify criminals.

“In many cases in the past, police have managed to track down the culprits and have them arrested with the help of CCTVs,“ he told theSun.

He also said such crimes were usually acts of opportunity and some people would still commit crime even with the presence of CCTVs.

“When there is a CCTV, there must be a control room. They must have someone monitoring the CCTVs all the time, so that if there is a criminal incident, they can sound the alarm,“ he said.

Lee added that auxiliary police personnel should also be making more frequent rounds, especially during the early hours when there were not many passengers at the stations.

This article first appeared on The Sun Daily. The photo used above in this article is sourced from The Sun Daily.