ORMER Mr PNG title holder and five-time power lifting gold medalist John Anis from Kumdi in the Western Highlands Province, was brutally murdered in Goroka last week.
Mr Anis was traveling with four other men in a hired vehicle to Goroka in the Eastern Highlands Province last Wednesday when he was shot at point blank range by one of the men sitting behind him inside the moving vehicle.
He died last Friday after doctors at the Goroka General Hospital tried in vain to save his life.
The people of Kumdi and Nangle where the late John Anis hails from were shocked and did not know what to say.
Kumdi leader Nicholas Wama and councillor Steven Dat said they do not know how Anis was gunned down inside a moving vehicle and they wanted to know the reasons behind his death before they go and get his body at the Goroka General Hospital morgue.
“Our young man was murdered inside a moving vehicle in the early hours of Thursday morning in Falufia, Hengenofi,” they said.
“This is a serious and deliberate murder and we want the police to deal with the murder case.
“Eastern Highlands Province and Hengenofi is far away from Kumdi and Mt Hagen and we want the police to fully investigate the murder of John Anis.”
Mr Dat said they would find out who was in the vehicle with Anis and the reason he travelled with them to Goroka.
John Anis was declared Mr PNG in American Samoa in 1994 when he won the gold medal in power lifting along with several other gold medals during national games in the 1990s. He is survived by his wife and children.
Post Courier