Missing Penang tahfiz student ends up in Taiping

GEORGE TOWN: The boy who went missing, after hitching a motorcycle ride on the Penang Bridge on Friday, went through a traumatic time when he was taken to spend the night at a hotel in Taiping, Perak, before being found the next day.

Mohammad Muzzafar Mohammad, 11, who is still confused and shaken, said he was taken to the hotel before he was dropped off at the Taiping bus terminal, 98.4km from here, the next night.

Mohammad Muzzafar, a quran-memorising pupil (tahfiz), hitched the ride when his step-father's motorcycle suffered a punctured tyre on the Penang Bridge at 11.30am on Friday.

"Initially, the uncle (the man who gave him a ride) said he wanted to send me back but after that he took me to a hotel. I was afraid ... he rode the motorcycle until Taiping. There was no one else at the hotel. The uncle did not say anything.

"He dropped me off at the bus station and then someone found me and took me to the police station," he said when met at the Jelutong Police Station here, early this morning.
Earlier, the policeman who fetched Mohammad Muzaffar from the Taiping Police Station, arrived at the Jelutong Police Station at 1am this morning before handing him over to his family after recording his statement.

Mohammad Muzaffar said he could not contact his family as he could not remember his mother's telephone number.

Meanwhile, his stepfather, Sabri Abdul Ghani, 53, who was also present at the police station, thanked all quarters who had helped to find and rescue his son. — Bernama