Police identify culprit who assaulted food deliveryman

Police have identified the culprit who is believed to have assaulted a food deliveryman in Alma here after a video of the incident went viral on Facebook yesterday.

Seberang Perai Tengah District Police chief ACP Shafee Abd Samad said police began investigating the case after a report was lodged by the 34-year-old victim, who was injured in the attack which occurred at about 11 am.

"The food deliveryman received an order for pizza from a man via his company's delivery app and when he reached the suspect's housing area, he contacted the suspect to confirm the address due to some confusion.

"When he finally delivered the food, he was verbally abused by the suspect, who handed him a RM50 note. While the victim was counting the change to be returned, the suspect grabbed the money and gave the pizza back to him, saying he wanted to cancel his order,” he said in a statement.

Shafee said that when the victim told the suspect that he would report to his company about the cancellation, the suspect took back the food and threw the RM50 note to the floor. The victim took the money and placed the change on the floor.

He said the suspect then told the victim to pick up the change but the deliveryman refused and the suspect then punched and kicked him before throwing the victim's mobile phone and power bank, which were in his motorcycle basket, to the ground and hit the victim with a helmet.

"The homeowner quickly intervened and investigations found that the home is actually a homestay, which the suspect had rented for the past five days, and that there is closed-circuit television (CCTV) there,” he said, adding that police are investigating the case under Section 323 of the Penal Code.