Police act fast to recover 34 stolen cows

ALOR GAJAH, 25 June 2009: A gang of 14 men tied up a couple working as caretakers of a cow pen in Kampung Ayer Itik, Menggong, here before fleeing with 34 cows on Monday night.

           (Pic by Dominik Domaziak /
                                  Dreamstime) However, Alor Gajah police district chief Supt Umar Ali Saifuddin Shaharuddin said swift action by police immediately after a report was made led to the recovery of seven cows and the detention of two men, and the subsequent recovery of the rest of the cows in a oil palm plantation near Gemencheh, Negeri Sembilan.

“This is the first case of cattle stolen in a large number in this area,” he told reporters at the scene of the incident here today.

He said the dairy cows, worth RM180,000, were ferried in two lorries in several round trips to the oil palm plantation, which was 45 minutes from where they were stolen.

He said the caretaker, his wife and two Indonesian workers farm workers were tied for almost six hours before freeing themselves and making a police report at the Machap Umboo police station near here.

“An operation was conducted as soon as the report was received at 3am on Tuesday, and we stopped a lorry heading towards Gemencheh and recovered the seven cows,” he said.

The caretaker, K Kannan, said he was woken from sleep at 9.40pm by the 14 men who had entered his house near the cow pen.

“I struggled with them, [but they were] armed with machetes and suffered a wound on my right palm,” he said.

He said he had been working for four years on the farm, which has 160 head of dairy cows. — Bernama