IT was a typical bank heist where the robbers barged in, held up everyone and made a grab for the cash. However, their attempt was foiled, thanks to a plucky security guard who took on the robbers with his shotgun.
Little did the security guard, Abdullah Mahmood, knew that he had not merely foiled a bank robbery but unwittingly exposed a far more sinister motive of the robbers.
On May 18, 2001, Abdullah, then aged 43, and his 64-year-old colleague, were on duty at the Southern Bank branch in Jalan Gasing, Petaling Jaya.
As the guards pulled down the shutters when it was time to close the bank at about 3.15pm, four robbers armed with pistols and a hammer barged in.
While a robber held up his colleague, bank staff and a customer, Abdullah, who had left his shotgun in a locker, gave the robbers the slip.
He managed to sneak into the locker room and grabbed his shotgun before taking position to confront the robbers at the right time.
As a gun-toting robber herded eight bank staff, a customer and Abdullah’s colleague to a corner and stood guard over them, his three accomplices emptied the drawers at the teller counters of cash.
Seconds later, Abdullah came out of the locker room and opened fire at the robbers.
As the stunned robbers froze, the guard cocked his pump-action rifle and fired two more rounds of ammunition.
After three robbers fell to the ground with gunshot wounds, Abdullah turned his rifle on the gunman.
The gunman scrambled towards the other guard, grabbed him and shielded himself before firing a gunshot, which narrowly missed Abdullah.
The robber edged towards the door and escaped on a motorcycle.
The three injured robbers were sent to a hospital for treatment. One of them succumbed to his injuries hours later.
For his bravery in foiling the robbery, Abdullah was praised and awarded a commendation letter by Selangor police several weeks later.
It was not the end of the case as a shocking discovery was yet to come.
Weeks later, with two of the robbers in custody, police investigators undertaking the case opened up a can of worms and learnt that the robbers were cell members of a covert Malaysian militant group.
The case had exposed the now defunct Kumpulan Mujahideen Malaysia (KMM).
Having operated in secrecy for over a decade, the robbers, who included a local university graduate, had pulled off the bank heist to fund KMM’s activities.
In the subsequent months, the Special Branch rounded up other KKM suspected members before sending them away under the now-repealed Internal Security Act. Within two years, the group was mowed down and made defunct by police.
Police had revealed that the group had planned to overthrow the Malaysian government to create a purist Muslim society.
The KMM is also said to be behind the murder of Lunas assemblyman Joe Fernandez six months earlier. Fernandez was gunned down by two assassins in Bukit Mertajam on Nov 4, 2000.
