KOTA KINABALU, Nov 24 — Gabungan Rakyat Sabah’s assemblyman Datuk Norazlinah Arif said yesterday she has accepted the apology of her fellow lawmaker from Parti Warisan, Sarifuddin Hata, for punching her earlier this week.

On Facebook, Norazlinah said she hoped roughhousing and disrespecting strangers from other gender will not be a commonplace practice.

"Let us take this incident as a lesson,” she said in a Facebook post.

Sarifuddin, who is Merotai assemblyman, had earlier apologised in a Facebook comment — saying he did not mean to physically hurt the Kunak representative.

He initially claimed that he was merely greeting Norazlinah with a clap while rushing to a press conference, but this was disputed by the latter.

On Friday, Norazlinah had lodged a police report claiming that she was punched while leaving the State Legislative Assembly building on Wednesday night.

In her police report, Norazlinah claimed that while she was leaving the State Legislative Assembly building around 8pm, she was punched her on her right shoulder, which caused her to turn and take a step back.

Norazlinah also claimed that her shoulder and arms still hurt.