Foreign student nabbed over handphone squabble with auxiliary cop

GOMBAK: A foreign student here has been detained after he allegedly refused to return a handphone belonging to an auxiliary policewoman at a university following a disagreement between the two.

District deputy OCPD Supt Zainal Mohamed said the incident occurred on March 31 and a video of it had been shared online.

"In the video, the suspect claimed that he had been attacked by the complainant, an auxiliary policewoman, at the entrance of the university when he had tried to enter to meet with a rector.

“He claimed that he had been invited but the complainant said during a phone call there with the student president to confirm the invitation, she was told that there had been no such meeting, which led to the suspect being dissatisfied.

"She then handed her phone over to the suspect so that he could talk to the student president, but when she tried to take her phone back, the suspect started recording her on his phone," he said in a statement Saturday (April 3).

At the time, no arrest was made due to orders from the university management which stated that no students were to be touched within campus.

"On April 2, at around 4.40pm, a police team from the Gombak police headquarters arrested the 22-year-old student near the auditorium.

“Checks showed that the student had recorded the incident because he was worried that nobody would believe that he had been attacked. He had shared the footage with other students via a Telegram group," Supt Zainal said.

The suspect, a native of India, has been remanded for four days.

In the one-minute 35-second video, the student can be seen arguing with the policewoman after she had demanded that he hand her back her handphone.

The policewoman then tried to take the phone away forcibly but the student warned her that he would "take her to court" if she touched him.

After a few seconds of arguing, she successfully retrieved her phone, before warning the student to not be "rude with me".

The student then continued on recording the policewoman, claiming that she had put her hands on him and that he had been speaking politely.