SHE did what any girl her age would do for her family - run an errand. But 10-year-old Nurul Huda Abdul Ghani did not make it to the grocery shop.

The little Johor girl had left her home at about 9.30am to cycle to the shops about 500m away.

But she never made it - and her family is left to mourn her shocking death at the hands of three alleged rapists.

The bright young spark was gang raped, brutally sodomised and then strangled in the tiny confines of a guardroom - a known haven for drug addicts.

After Nurul failed to return from the shops - located near the Second Link expressway in Tanjung Kupang - her parents became worried.

Said her father, Mr Abdul Ghani Juni: 'We looked all over but could not find her. As a last resort, we approached the guard (at the guardhouse about 150m from their home).

'We hoped he could shed some light, but he refused to let us in even though we wanted to look around.

'We were also suspicious of his behaviour,' added Mr Abdul Ghani, a Gelang Patah Umno division committee member.

He then reported her missing to the Tanjung Kupang police, who immediately began a search.

The police went to the guardhouse and saw the guard behaving suspiciously, reported The Star.

Johor Baru (North) CID chief Deputy Supt Ahmad Zamri Awang said the guard refused to open the gates and threatened the police with a parang.

'Sensing something amiss, the policemen climbed over the gate and the guard came rushing out with a parang.

'A scuffle took place and the policemen managed to restrain him,' DSP Ahmad Zamri said.

The police searched the place and found Nurul naked and unconscious in the toilet around 12.45 pm.

They rushed her to a nearby clinic where she was declared dead.

According to doctors who conducted the post-mortem, Nurul was sodomised and there were marks on the neck indicating that she was strangulated, DSP Ahmad Zamri said.

'The cause of death is due to manual strangulation, meaning that her attacker or attackers had used their bare hands to strangle the victim,' he said.

The security guard, 46, from Kelantan, has eight previous convictions, including robbery cases. He has been remanded with a jobless man, 37, from Kampung Pekajang.

The police believe that other suspect, who is on the run, is a drug addict.

The New Straits Times reported that the scene of the crime was a haven for drug addicts - a haunt for unemployed youths looking for a fix or indulge in glue-sniffing.

The police found a few empty glue cans in a drain near the guardhouse.

Locals allege that they had alerted the police earlier about the problems caused by these addicts but no action had been taken.

Nurul's family is shattered.

Now, only her smile remains in their memories.

Said her father Abdul Ghani, 53: 'No amount of money will bring my daughter back. My family and I have accepted the fact that she has gone, but I would like to see justice served.'

Nurul was the youngest of his 9 children. He said that Nurul, who was a jovial girl, had wanted to be a doctor and was very close to him.

'She even slept with her mother and me although she was 10,' he told the media in between sobs.

His wife, Madam Zainon Abu Bakar, was overwhelmed when asked about her daughter.

She said: 'It's hard to believe that someone did this to her. It is even harder to believe that she was murdered in such a peaceful village.'

Her brother, Mr Amir Effendi, 21, remembered his sister as a 'clever girl, always asking questions and wanting to know about things around her'.

'That is why she was made a school prefect,' he told the New Straits Times at the Sultanah Aminah Hospital mortuary while waiting to claim his sister's body.

'Nurul was also my father's favourite. She was very close to him. In fact, all of us pampered her because she was the youngest,' he said.

Said Nurul's aunt, Ms Rozita Abu Bakar, 30: 'I don't know how anybody can do this to our Nurul. I'll just pray that God punish these people.'

She said her niece had behaved oddly the day before she was killed when she asked her mother to buy her some white cloth for her prefect's uniform, which was supposed to be red.

Muslims are wrapped in white when they are buried.

THE furore over the rape and murder of 10-year-old Nurul Huda Abdul Ghani was reflected in the newspapers.

Most put the 'murder most foul', as the New Straits Times called it, on the front page.

The sheer brutality of the attack on the little girl is partly responsible for the intensity of shock and outrage felt by the people.

That this is the second rape of a 10-year-old girl within two weeks has added to the feeling.

'Rape outrage', screamed The Star. The New Straits Times followed suit with 'Outrage over Nurul murder'. Utusan Malaysia expressed the people's desire for justice by calling for a death sentence for the alleged rapists.

Columnist Ravi Nambiar pointed a finger at the authorities for not paying enough attention when residents complained about the goings-on at the guardhouse.

He added that tragedies like Nurul's are bound to happen when not enough background checks are done before hiring people. The guard engaged by the Tenaga Nasional Berhad had eight previous police convictions including armed robbery.

Today's editorial in New Straits Times summed up the general worry among parents especially. It asked: 'Can't our young girls be carefree any more and venture on their own outside their homes without facing mortal danger?'

SoulJah says - Give me 10 minutes with the three guys in a room... And a fucking baseball bat... I can make them bloody, extra bloody or just some random red bits splattered all over the room...

Posted by SoulJah at 3:15:00 AM

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