KUALA LUMPUR:The burglars who slashed a retired researcher to death in a robbery at Bukit Bandaraya, Bangsar, here early this morning were believed to have broken into the house via the back lane.

A security company representative for the area, Ranveer Singh, 32, said the guard on duty at Jalan Mambu last night did not detect any suspicious movement.

“The security guards here are on duty 24 hours a day and they will surely track the criminals if they used the front lane,” he told Bernama at the scene today.

Ranveer, who regretted the incident, said the residents have proposed increasing the number of security guards in the housing area.

Meanwhile, Brickfields district police chief ACP Anuar Omar said the two suspects were believed to have escaped through a big drain at the back of the two-storey bungalow.

He said the police dogs managed to track the suspects up to 50 metres from the drain before they lost the suspects’ smell in the water near the main road.

“Police are intensifying efforts to hunt for the suspects,” he said.

In the 3.30 am incident, the victim Dr Wan Hassan Wan Embong, 71, a former researcher of the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI)  was slashed to death by two burglars who broke into his house while his wife, Sarifah Yusof, 70, had slash wounds on the right hand.

The victim was believed to have been slashed with a parang when he tried to put up a fight against the burglars, who broke in through the kitchen window of the double-storey bungalow.

-- BERNAMA