TAMPIN: “I was so shocked to find a boy, sleeping naked on the floor, inside a locked, dirty room, with no lights on,” said Mohd Dom Md Amin, 57, the village head of Kampung Parit Buluh, Air Kuning Selatan, Gemencheh here.
Mohd Dom had discovered and rescued the three-year-old boy on Friday just after midnight, after he had apparently been left alone in a house here.
He said other villagers had earlier reported that they heard the victim's cries for several days before he was found.
“I went to the house to check, but couldn't find or hear anything (and) the main door was locked from the outside," said Mohd Dom.
"Last night, the boy's cries were heard again. This time, I immediately rushed to the house and lodged a police report. When the police arrived at about 12.45am, we found a boy lying naked on the floor inside one of the rooms in the house,” he said.
"The boy looked weak and scared. He was also crying non-stop. I immediately gave him chocolate drinks and water, besides bread and bananas. He ate them all and it was obvious to me that he was starving,” he said.
"We did not know of the existence of the boy, because his mother never brought him out of the house," he said when met at the scene today.
Mohd Dom said the boy was then taken to the Tampin Hospital for a check-up.
It is learnt that the mother had gone to her hometown in Felda Jelai, Negri Sembilan, together with her two sons aged 13 and 14, to look after the former’s ailing mother.
Meanwhile, state Women, Development, Family and Community Welfare committee chairman, Datuk Nohayati Omar, said the boy will be handed to his grandfather for temporary custody after he is discharged from the hospital.
She added that based on the medical check-up, the boy had not sustained any physical injuries, but the state Social Welfare Department will continue to monitor his condition until investigation of the case is completed.