Police in Malaysia say they are investigating the death of a woman, believed to be a foreigner, whose decomposing body was discovered in a travel bag at an abandoned bus station.

A passerby found the bag near a building belonging to the state electricity company Tenaga Nasional Berhad earlier this week in Kulai, a district in the southern state of Johor, state news agency Bernama reported.

Kulai district police chief Tok Beng Yeow said the highly decomposed state of the body — which he estimated at more than 50 per cent – had hampered initial identification efforts, according to Bernama.

Police suspect the woman was a foreigner aged over 25.
Police suspect the woman was a foreigner aged over 25. (Mapbox)

However, a preliminary post-mortem report by Sultanah Aminah Hospital suggested the body belonged to a woman over 25 years of age, who had sustained a head injury and may have died around two weeks ago.

According to the Straits Times news website, police believe the woman was a foreigner.

Johor police chief Kamarul Zaman Mamat was quoted by the news website as saying a lack of a vaccination scar on her arm suggested she was not Malaysian.

“We just received the report stating that there was no BCG scar on the victim’s left upper arm,” he said.

All Malaysian children are given a BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin) vaccination to prevent tuberculosis.

Police say the investigation is ongoing and have appealed to local residents to come forward with information.

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