Drama in Simpang Pulai: Cops shoot tyre to end 40km car chase

Three men learnt the hard way that there’s no escaping the long arm of the law despite speeding off in a car for 40 kilometres after being ordered to stop by police in Simpang Pulai yesterday.

Ipoh District police chief Asmadi Abdul Aziz said the trio, aged 21 to 26, were arrested at Jalan Chenderiang Lama in Tapah when the Toyota Avanza vehicle they were in skidded after police shot the car’s tyre.

He said that in the 11.10am incident, traffic police directed the 26-year-old to pull over for using a handphone at Jalan Sultan Nazrin Shah, Simpang Pulai in Ipoh.

“The driver instead sped of towards Gopeng and preliminary investigations found that his accomplice sitting in the back seat had a knife pointed at the driver’s abdomen so that he would not stop the vehicle due to a drug-related offence,” he said at a press conference yesterday evening.

He said the driver rammed through the roadblock in front of the Gopeng Rural Transformation Centre (RTC) and evaded another police roadblock in Kampar.

Asmadi said police, through Op Tutup, set up a barricade using a car and a lorry in front of the Chenderiang Police Station but the suspects again crashed through it, forcing police to fire three shots at the Toyota Avanza’s right tyre.

“This caused the vehicle to skid and crash into the post of a house. The three suspects, from Kampar and Tapah, tried to escape but were arrested nearly 40 minutes after the drama began (in Simpang Pulai),” he said.

According to him, checks found that the Toyota Avanza was rented and the driver did not have a driving licence. The suspects were also believed to have dumped some of the drugs from the vehicle while fleeing from police.

“Police are conducting investigations at the location and trying to trace the drugs, which were dumped by the suspects, with the help of the K9 unit,” he said, adding that all three suspects tested positive for methamphetamine and have previous criminal records.

Asmadi said the case was being investigated under Section 309 of the Penal Code for attempted murder, Section 26 of the Police Act 1967 for failure to comply with the authority’s orders as well as Section 42 and 43 of the Road Transport Act 1987.

- Bernama