TAMPIN, 6 Jan — Police have detained a 29-year-old woman who allegedly left her two-year-old son alone in their locked rented home in Kg Parit Buluh in Air Kuning Selatan near here.
Villagers called the police after hearing the boy’s cries coming from the house, which was in complete darkness, around midnight.
Officers forced open the front door to rescue the victim and were shocked to see him naked and living in squalor.
Tampin OCPD Supt Hamazah Ad Razak said his men then gave the boy some food and water before rushing him to the hospital.
“She claimed that she had to return to her village in Felda Jelai in Gemas to look after her mother who was suffering from mental illness, as well as her stepmother who was recently involved in a road accident,” he said, adding that the victim was the woman’s fourth child.
The woman has three other children from her first marriage. The eldest child was being looked after by her ex-mother-in-law while the second and third lived with her.
Supt Hamazah said preliminary investigations showed that the boy had been left alone since 6pm on Thursday.
He said the woman said she would normally leave one of her sons behind with the toddler whenever she had to return to her village.
“The woman has been living with her second husband for the past two years but they only got married last October.
“We also found out that the victim was born following an affair the mother had with an Indonesian man before meeting her second husband,” he said, adding that the woman had also failed to register his birth.
Supt Hamazah said the woman never told her second husband, who worked as a lorry driver and was frequently outstation, that the victim was her own child.
“She would say that she was just taking care of him for a friend,” he said.
He said that the boy did not have any external injuries and the case was being investigated under Section 33 of the Child Act 2001 for deliberately leaving a child without reasonable supervision.
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