Arab News 

JEDDAH, Nov 1: An Indian employee who resisted a robbery was stabbed to death yesterday afternoon in a stationery shop.

According to police, an unidentified man with a knife walked into the Al-Hanan Stationery Shop at Kilo 3 on Old Makkah Road, during the noon prayer. Biran Koya, the Indian employee, resisted the man’s demands for money and a fight broke out.

Police at the scene said Koya, 40, was stabbed 17 times and died in the shop of internal injuries.

Koya’s body, covered in blood, was discovered by two Indian children when they entered the shop shortly after the noon prayer. A Saudi man was arrested a short distance from the shop when he was observed wearing bloodstained clothes. He is being held by police and the blood on his clothing is being analyzed to see if it matches Koya’s.

Koya, from the south Indian city of Calicut, had been working in the Kingdom for the past 15 years, 10 years of which was spent working for Al-Rajhi Bank. For the past five years he worked in the stationery shop where he was brutally murdered.

Mohammed Naser, another Indian working in Jeddah and one of the victim’s closest friends, said Koya had two daughters and a son in India.

Fawaz Al-Harbi, a 13-year-old Saudi boy who lives in the building where the stationery shop is located, said Koya was a very nice man and respected in the neighborhood. Al-Harbi added that he always bought his school supplies from the shop.