Kuala Lumpur: Two knife-wielding men, who tried to rob and rape a lone woman driver, are now comatose in a Malaysian hospital.
The 20-year-old woman, identified as Alice Lien Hua, was driving home in Sabah from Penampang, some 12 km south, when the duo stopped her car midway.
According to a posting on Kelab Info Malaysia Facebook page, the victim said she noticed the duo was following her on a motorcycle. Subsequently she pulled over to let them pass but instead they stopped and told her to roll down her car window.
At this point, Alice did something unexpected. She alighted from her car and faced the men.
According to her, the men demanded money and when she couldn’t produce any, one man tried to drag her into a nearby bush while another tied to take her can in the car.
The young woman managed to gain the upper hand and fought off her attackers. She also wounded them so badly, that they are now lying in coma in a hospital, alternativemediasyndicate.com reported.
It quoted local Sabah online news blogs to narrate how Alice thrashed her attackers and rammed them with her car that made them unconscious.
The Facebook post states that the woman reportedly contacted a friend from the Criminal Investigation Department of Inanam in Kota Kinabalu and three officials who investigated the incident found that the two men were illegal migrants with no identification documents.
The suspects were reportedly taken to a local hospital in Luyang while the victim went to file a police report of the incident at the Kota Kinabalu police station.
After Kelab Info Malaysia shared the news and identified the victim, it was widely shared on social media that Alice was a former martial arts exponent who represented Sabah in competitions.
The victim later posted a comment on Facebook asking viewers if they thought she should be charged for wounding the men. She was inundated with praises for her gutsy self-defense.
“This is what we want to hear! A criminal who is defeated by his victim instead,” one netizen commented.
Others highlight the importance of learning self-defense as one can never know when we might have to defend ourselves.
After news of the woman foiling her attempted rape went viral, Kota Kinabalu police chief ACP M. Chandra said that no such report had been lodged on the incident, it was reported by The Sun Daily.
There was no further information provided as to the source of the viral photographs and Facebook account provided in the original posting by Kelab Info Malaysia.
Meanwhile Penampang police chief DSP Rosley Hobden was quoted by another local English news daily as brushing aside the incident as a hoax. However, the victim has also come forward to explain her hesitation in making an official complaint for fears of being charged.
Despite various statements issued by Sabah police representatives, Alice insisted that her story was real and authentic. She updated her Facebook page on March 15 asking people not to be so hasty to judge her.
She also disputed several accounts of the incident which she had detailed in her recent Facebook post which appears as she was leaving Kota Kinabalu airport en route to the United Kingdom.