Singapore 1st riot after 40 years

(Personal Sharing)

Heard from someone who stays in the vicinity of Little India said that he would try to get home early every weekend because later in the evenings his neighbourhood would transform and it would not feel like Singapore anymore. 

People would congregate in groups of more than 5 in the common areas (although technically these would be unlawful gatherings), drink beer, share food, talk loudly, sing, dance and pee on the walls. It is quite scary.

In the mornings, he would witness the aftermath (the sight and the smell) of such night time activities. Awful..

I stayed at jurong west area. Before jurong point was expanded to include the new condominium and before frontier primary school was constructed, there were congregation in the empty field lands at night and during weekends. Groups of people would also buy drinks from the local stores. They came from nearby workers quarters.

They still gather at night during weekends but the crowd is not as much as before.

Actual happening of the riot: 

WHEN an intoxicated construction worker boarded a packed bus and dropped his trousers on Sunday evening, it set the scene for Singapore's first riot in more than four decades.

The bus driver wanted him out. Madam Wong, 38, the bus assistant, persuaded Mr Sakthivel Kumaravelu to alight.

The bus driver then quickly closed the bus doors and started to ferry the foreign workers in the bus to Jalan Papan from Tekka Lane.

He did not get very far. He was making a left turn into Race Course Road when he heard a loud bang.

He then discovered that he had knocked down the drunk man, who was pinned under the left rear wheel of the bus.

What followed was pandemonium that ended in a riot involving about 400 people, and 320 policemen to control them.

Investigations revealed that after Sakthivel disembarked, he was walking or running after the bus in “an unsteady manner”. “He then stumbled, tripped and fell onto the path of the rear tyre of the bus and was run over, ” the police added.