LOCAL GIRL FROM KG MARAKAU RANAU SHOT AT POINT BLANK WITH A BAKAKUK (HOME-MADE SHOTGUN) BY DRUNK BOYFRIEND

Student, 15, is shot dead by boyfriend

Ranau September 08, 2010: A 15-year-old student was shot dead with a single gunshot in a house at Kg Nabutan, about 30 kilometres from the township, Monday night.

The local girl identified only as Avita, from Kg Marakau Dambalangan, was shot point blank with a bakakuk (home-made shotgun) on her arm causing the pellets to penetrate her chest.

Prior to the incident, the victim and her 19-year-old cousin had followed their boyfriends to the house for a drinking session with several others.

District Police Chief DSP Suhaimy Hashim said the house was used as accommodation for oil palm plantation workers and that both the girls' boyfriends, in their 20s, worked in plantations.

"After the drinking session, the two men brought the girls to separate rooms on the upper floor. All of them were drunk.

"We don't know yet what had happened in the room where the victim was but her cousin who was with her boyfriend in another room heard a gunshot at about 8.30pm.

"Both of them ran out of the house," he said, adding that the two men are locals.

Suhaimy said the house owner discovered Avita's lifeless body on the upper floor with a bullet wound on her chest at 10.20am, Tuesday.

"We believe the victim's boyfriend had shot her with a bakakuk.

She was shot on her right arm and the bullet penetrated her chest."

Police have since managed to arrest the two men for investigations. Avita's cousin was also picked up to facilitate the probe.

Avita's body was taken to the hospital for post-mortem and the case is being investigated under Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder.