PETALING JAYA, July 19 — Armed robbers took advantage of the Hari Raya holidays to rob a jewellery store in a hypermarket in Kelana Jaya. 

Four men, one armed with a gun, took just three minutes to get away with RM400,000 worth of gold items at 1pm on Friday.

The robbers were not deterred despite the alarm going off.

“The usually busy hypermarket only had a few shops open,” City CID chief SAC Datuk Zainuddin Ahmad said.

“The robbers, wearing helmets with tinted visors, stormed the store which had no customers at the time.” 

Zainuddin said one of the robbers pointed a gun at the store staff and warned them not to move. 

“His three accomplices used hammers to smash the showcases before stuffing the loot in a bag,” he said. 

There were no security guards on duty although an attempted robbery had taken place there in 2012. At that time, the robbers abandoned their plan when the alarm went off.

“The store has an intruder alarm and closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera,” Zainuddin said.

“We have retrieved the CCTV footage and are trying to establish if the same robbers were involved in similar robberies in the Klang Valley early this year.

“They must have picked their target as there were no security guards.”

The robbers fled in a car parked at the entrance of the hypermarket. 

In an unrelated incident, the manager of an optical shop at Berjaya Times Square, Kuala Lumpur, was assaulted by a group of men on Friday night. 

The fracas occurred when the victim, aged 34, confronted the men about a pair of sunglasses that went missing after the five men went to his shop at 9.30pm. 

A police source said the men entered the shop and inquired about sunglasses. 

“They tried out several pairs and when they left, the shop manager noticed an item missing,” the source said.

“When he shouted at the men they pounced on him and kicked and punched him for almost three minutes before fleeing.

The victim was sent to Prince Court Medical Centre for treatment.

A police report was lodged at the Tun H.S. Lee station.

Zainuddin confirmed the incident and said police were trying to identify the attackers.