Man Attacked M’sian Couple In Bakery Because He Thought They Were Taking Pictures Of Him

Ever had one of those moments where you’re on a public transport just staring into space and wind up embarrassed, all because you’ve unwittingly made direct eye contact with a stranger for 3 minutes and 24 seconds?

Yup, me too.

In my case however, even if I’m just looking at something, people have the tendency to think I’m looking at them and thus stare at me.

Having been through this countless times, I realized it’s best to feign ignorance to save us both from feeling a-w-k-w-a-r-d.

Eye contact apart, I sometimes encounter people on the MRT who get self-conscious when they think someone seated opposite them is taking a photo of them.

Once again, myself included. With the ownership of camera phones becoming more prevalent today, misunderstandings are bound to occur.

Like this incident.

Malaysian man thought he was being photographed

According to a Malaysian news program, Buletin TV3, a 22-year-old man was attacked with a knife on 12 April (last Friday).

The vicious fight broke out at 5:30 p.m. after a man thought the 22-year-old was taking photos of him, when in fact, he was taking a selfie with his partner.

Buletin TV3 uploaded a few photos of the injured victim on their Facebook page. And from the looks of it, the culprit went all out and vented his anger on him.

When the culprit first misinterpreted the couple’s actions, they got into an unresolved argument.

Victim ruthlessly slashed

Not long after leaving the scene, the culprit returned with another man whose identity wasn’t revealed. Unconvinced that the couple weren’t snapping photos of him, the man in question didn’t hesitate to stab the victim’s hand and leg.

(Gosh, why not just check the phone?!)

This attracted a number of passers-by who flocked to the scene while the Medical Team administered first-aid before sending him straight to Sarawak General Hospital.

With Buletin TV3’s post garnering over 900 likes and 200 comments, netizens have been sharing their two cents on the incident.

Most of them talked about how the culprit overreacted.

One netizen, however, mentioned that he always read comments on how Sarawak is safe with people from different religion and nations.

Which he clearly disagrees with as incidents like these contradict it.

According to TravelFish, Sarawak is indeed a Malaysian state “known for its indigenous communities… with more than 45 recognized ethnic groups… which make up more than half of the overall population”.

Likewise, Singapore’s population consists of people of different ethnicity.

Yet, we still hear news of party A injuring B due to a conflict regardless of how big or small.

I personally don’t think it’s possible for authorities to take preventive action against such incidents.

Instead, we should be mindful of our surroundings, especially since we’ll never know what others have encountered in the past.

Taking the culprit, for example, he could’ve been overly self-conscious of his appearance among many other reasons we’ll never know.