KUCHING: A thief was handed over to police after he was caught red-handed stealing a fighting cockerel from a house early yesterday.

‘FOWLING’ AGAINST THE LAW: The theft suspect being led away to the police lockup.

The incident happened around 1am at Taman Chong Hin along Pisang Road West when a house owner, a 34-year-old man, woke up from sleep after hearing his dog barking at the back of his house.

According to the owner, he peeked out the window and spotted an unknown man removing one of his fighting cocks, valued at more than RM1,000, from inside its cage.

He immediately rushed out to confront him.

The suspect, later identified as a man in his 30s from Kampung Kudei, was about to hand over the stolen fowl to an accomplice waiting outside the house when the owner pounced on him.

On seeing what happened the accomplice immediately fled the scene on foot, empty-handed.

The owner’s family contacted the police, who arrived shortly after and took the suspect into custody.

He was taken to the Simpang Tiga police station for questioning and later detained in the lockup.

The relieved house owner said the incident was the third to have occurred in as many nights which saw seven of his pricey birds missing.

He suspected the same two persons were responsible for the thefts.

In an unrelated incident, a college student lost more than RM200 after she was forced to surrender the money to a bogus cop last Friday.

The incident happened around 4.30pm at Taman BDC when the victim, who is in her late teens, arrived at her rented house after attending classes at her college nearby.

According to a friend of the victim, a man driving a red Proton Iswara Aeroback pulled up beside the girl, told her he was a police officer and demanded she hand over her wallet for inspection.

When she refused and requested him to produce his warrant card for verification, the man grabbed her wallet and removed the cash inside before speeding away from the scene.

Realising the man was not what he claimed to be, the victim headed to the police station to lodge a report.

Police are now looking for the suspect’s car after a description of it was provided by the victim.