KUALA KANGSAR, MALAYSIA: Two sisters were trapped on Monday in their family car with three robbers for more than two hours before they were abandoned at a lonely spot in Liman Kati, here.

The sisters, aged 6 and 17, were asleep in the Honda Accord when their parents stopped the car but left the engine running to enter a photo shop in Jalan Bagor, here. Three men then jumped into the car and drove away.

The teenager, Nurul Fatin Farhana Dzulkafli, said one of the robbers held her hand and head tightly and warned her not to make any noise.

"I followed their instructions, thinking they were going to hurt me if I put up a struggle.

"It happened in a split second and and I did not have time to escape. I was worried for my little sister as well," Nurul Fatin said. Her sister, Siti Haida Dzulkafli, was asleep.

The robbers drove for about two hours, trying to decide what to do with the girls until one of them suggested that they be abandoned at some lonely spot.

Nurul Fatin who is sitting her Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia this year, said she overheard one of the men saying: "Pity them, let's not take them too far away. It's dark and it's already 11pm."

The siblings were not harmed but they were ordered out of the car at a secluded spot in Liman Kati, some 20km from the place where they were abducted. The sisters then met a man who took them to the Kuala Kangsar police station.

The robbers escaped with a Global Positioning System, RM300, a handphone, two torchlights and a bunch of house keys.

The car was found abandoned at Rantau Panjang, Kelantan, at 1.40am yesterday.

The girls' parents, Major Dzulkafli Ahmad, 48, the deputy commandant at the Armed Forces staff college in Haigate, Kuala Lumpur, and housewife Fauziah Saafie, 41, were relieved when they were reunited with their daughters several hours later.

"This incident had taught us not to leave the children, even for a second, in the car with the engine running. We are thankful that our children were not harmed," Fauziah said.

Kuala Kangsar district police chief Superintendent Abdul Gaffar Muhammad confirmed the incident but declined to elaborate as investigations were still ongoing.

- New Straits Times