Blind Uncle Held Up Traffic In Bangsar And Refused To Move Until Someone Gave Him Money
"What can we do about it?"
By Samantha Khor — 12 May 2017, 01:56 PM
A video that's currently circulating on social media seems to have unveiled an elderly man's long-running tactic to get members of public to give him money
Posted by Matt Ong, the video shows a visually-impaired elderly man standing in the middle of a road in Bangsar and holding up traffic as Ong tried to get him to cross over to safety.
"Just hanging out in Bangsar when I noticed a blind man in the middle of the road. Another guy was trying to help him off it because he was holding traffic up but he didn't budge.
Thinking it was a language issue I went up to him to help, but then I realized, he wasn't clueless. He knew exactly what he was doing and wouldn't budge unless I gave him some money. So I gave one Ringgit to pacify him. He took the cash and then continued standing there after berating me that it wasn't enough. He wanted a 10 or 20," Ong wrote.
In the video, Ong can be heard trying to persuade the uncle to move to the side of the road as he was holding up traffic. However, the uncle refused to budge and even threatened to hit him.
In the exchange, the elderly man can be heard saying, "Don't make me angry, I will hit you. Go away!" in Hokkien.
Ultimately, the driver of the car who was blocked by the uncle offered to give him RM10. Only then did he relent and finally moved to the side of the road.
Posted yesterday, 11 May, the video has gone viral on social media with over 115k views on Facebook. Turns out, many Malaysians have encountered this particular uncle before from as early as 10 years ago:
He was also said to have been spotted in various areas across the Klang Valley, including Damansara Uptown, Subang, and Mont Kiara
In his now-viral post, Ong explained that he had no intention to "villanise" the man by posting the video of his confrontation with the uncle
"I wasn't at all angry, just sad that he had to resort to this to beg. I was half and half about posting this because while I don't want to villainise the man, I was wondering if it's legal to blackmail and hold traffic like this. What can we do about it?," he wrote.
In the comments section, some Facebook users have suggestions on how this can be dealt with:
