Suspect caught and shamed

BUKIT MERTAJAM: A 60-year-old man was made to wear a sign denouncing him as a thief and vandal at the Cherok To’kun Forest Reserve here.

The man was apprehended by a group of hikers, who suspected him of vandalising and stealing things from the park’s rest area on the hill.

He was made to stand for an hour in public view at the park on Wednesday morning, with a sign hanging around his neck which read: ‘I am a THIEF! I steal and damage things from Tokun’.

Cherok To’kun Hikers Club chairman Low Boon Leng said a series of thefts and vanda­lism had taken place over the past two years and, frustrated by the incidents, they installed a hidden camera at the rest stop last week.

“Then when a tap went missing, we immediately checked the recording and saw the culprit. We circulated his image and on Wednesday, at about 9am, hikers caught the man.

“When we approached him, he denied it but upon seeing the recording, he agreed to wear the sign,” said Low in an interview.

He said they decided to just teach the man a lesson and not hand him over to the police in view of his age, adding that they only had proof of the one incident.

When contacted, Central Seberang Prai OCPD Asst Comm Mohd Rusli Noor advised the public not to take the law into their own hands.