Policeman found murdered in USJ police station (Updated)

PETALING JAYA: A police lance corporal on duty alone at the Pinggiran USJ police station was found murdered with gunshot and slash wounds early today.
Lance-corporal Valentino Mesa, 29, is believed to have been shot dead with his own pistol and slashed in the head by his assailants about an hour before his body was found face-down behind a counter at the community station by his colleagues at about 3.25am.
His service pistol was also missing.
Sources said at about 7.30pm, police arrested a 35-year-old man, who is also a Sarawakian and said to be a relative of the victim.
It is learnt that he was nabbed at the KL International Airport minutes before an aircraft he had boarded for Kuching was about to take off.
It is yet to be ascertained if he is a suspect or was held to merely assist in the investigations.
Police patrolmen on duty had pulled over to check the place after finding the lights of the station located in a shoplot were switched off at the time.
Thinking it was a power failure, they were stumped on seeing Mesa lying motionless on the ground in a pool of blood.
He had reported for work at midnight at the isolated station which is located in an industrial area.
Selangor police chief Commissioner Datuk Mazlan Mansor said today that investigations are ongoing to determine the motive behind the attack.
He said there was no closed-circuit security cameras (CCTV) installed in the station but witnesses told police that they heard explosions coming out of the place at about 2.40am and thought it was fireworks from the National Day celebrations.
He said police believe Mesa was killed at the time as an officer had carried out an inspection at the station at 1.30am.
Mazlan said investigators are trying to obtain recordings of CCTVs installed in the vicinity to identify those behind the murder.
He said police believe there was more than one assailant involved.
"The intention of the assailants was to attack the policeman and nothing else. We feel this is a challenge put to the police but we will continue our policing work without fear and will always be here to serve the public," he said.
The Sarawakian who is married but had no children had joined the police force seven years ago.
Sources also said said the victim who was well-liked by his colleagues was an active sportsman and played football for the Subang Jaya police team.
Mesa's body was sent to the Serdang Hospital for a post mortem and expected to be flown to Sarawak from the KL International Airport (KLIA) at 8pm last night.
Today's incident was the second case of murder involving the police this month.
On Aug 18, Sub-Inspector Abu Hashim Ismail, 54, a detective with the federal CID was shot dead after two men confronted him in Taman Sri Hosba, Changloon, Kedah.
Abu Hashim was at the house of a police informant and on an intelligence-gathering routine on smuggling activities at the border town when the assailants showed up before killing him with four gunshots to his back.
The case was solved when nine men were nabbed by police hours and days later.