A teenager who was abducted from a cyber cafe in Tampoi Indah, Johor Baru, and later found dead in front of a temple in Jalan Stulang Laut early this week, was a victim of murder.

Acting Johor Criminal Investigation Department chief assistant commissioner Che Yussof Che Ngah said in a statement here today, the police had re-classified the 16-year-old boy's death as murder.

The statement clarified a news report in an English daily which said the police had written off the case as an accident and investigated it under Section 363 of the Penal Code for abduction

Che Yussof urged those with information on the murder to contact the police hotline at 07-221 2999 to facilitate investigations.

Earlier, the victim's mother, Yeak Fang, 44, had appealed to the police to investigate the case thoroughly as she believed her son was murdered.

The footage of a closed-circuit television camera installed at the cyber cafe where the victim had worked part-time, showed three youths entering the premises about 4.20am on Monday.

Yeak Fang told a press conference yesterday that the trio spoke to her son, dragged him out of the cyber cafe, assaulted him and forced the teenager into a car.

- Bernama