A string of suspected gangland shootings that killed four men in just eight days has shaken Kuala Lumpur, stoking public fears and casting doubt on police assurances that the city remains safe.
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The shootings took place in the Klang Valley – Malaysia’s most affluent region encompassing Kuala Lumpur and industrialised areas of neighbouring Selangor – after masked gunmen struck in full view of witnesses and CCTV cameras.
The latest shooting on Friday saw a 46-year-old man gunned down in broad daylight as he sat in the driver’s seat of a four-wheel-drive car in Selangor’s port city of Klang, which has a reputation for organised crime.
Just three days earlier, two men in their 40s were killed in the Cheras district on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur after being ambushed shortly after midnight in the car park of a shopping centre. Both men were shot at close range by masked attackers believed to have been lying in wait.
Cheras, an area known for its concentration of Chinese Malaysians and a growing number of immigrants from China who have set up small businesses, has long been notorious for gang-related activity.
Police said preliminary investigations suggested the killings in Cheras and an earlier fatal shooting in Brickfields – a neighbourhood colloquially known as “Little India”, where ethnic Indian gangs have long operated – could be linked to gang violence.
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