After a violent 24 hours in Kuala Lumpur, police are potentially clamping down on late night parties, with one bar near the scene of yesterday’s violence in Bangsar being raided by Bukit Aman in the early hours of this morning.
Witnesses at the scene report of urine tests, and remand for those who failed them or were underage. For all intents and purposes, it was not necessarily the same crowd of thirty whose fight spilled onto the street from a banana leaf restaurant the day before.
Rewind. In the morning after Wesak Day, the holiday celebrating Buddha’s birthday, Malaysians awoke to several stories of violence.
First there were social media whisperings of nefarious events in the upscale Bangsar neighborhood, with forensics police officers combing over a nearby bank. The early media blackout meant Facebook groups were rife with speculation. Truth is always stranger than fiction: officials later released a statement detailing a brawl that began in a banana leaf restaurant, moving later a block down the street and eventually leading to accidents with nearby parked cars. One of the suspects was caught fleeing the scene and police fired a bullet at the vehicle. He managed to escape and his whereabouts are still unknown.
Across town, on Tun Razak, another brawl was happening at KL’s largest entertainment district TREC. Reports surfaced that forty individuals at Arte Bar ended up in a shoving match at the popular venue. Ten individuals, five from the UK, two from Ireland and three Malaysians – were arrested. Two of them are in hospital with serious injuries.
The cause of the fight? Reports in Kosmo! ascertain that two local individuals were slighted when a British man bumped shoulders with them walking through the bar. The kerfuffle that ensued resulted in a Datuk discharging his firearm into the air to “break it up,” and one might imagine also scaring everyone senseless. The fight only stopped when police arrived on the scene. Not even a scuffed running shoe, or decent rap track in sight, and people are firing guns.
Less than 12 hours later, 4 men were shot dead by police, in a botched robbery in Wangsa Maju. A Chinese national had recently withdrawn RM40,000 when he was held at knifepoint by members of the Gang Civic. Senior Assistant Commissioner Rusdi Mohd Isa told reporters that policemen who were on patrol in the area noticed the robbers. “When police tried to arrest the suspects, they fired at them. The policemen returned fire and all four suspects were killed in the shootout,” he said. Eleven bullet casings were found at the scene. He added that it all happened rather quickly, and was over in less that 10 minutes.
And so here we are, on a Friday, gearing up to go out later and relax after a long week. Most people, who are looking to go out, have fun, and not start a fight over something as banal as banana leaf are probably thinking “where will be raided next?” Last night it was Bangsar. Tonight, who knows. Keep your heads up, and noses clean: they’re testing for drugs too.
