Little India rioters chanted ‘Kill the woman, burn the bus’: Certis officer
A rock the size of a fist slammed into his head as shattered glass rained down on him during the riot in Little India on Dec 8, 2013. Certis officer Nathan Chandra Sekaran, then 34, was surrounded by hundreds of rioters, who were so close he could smell the stench of alcohol on their breaths.
“They were chanting in Tamil, ‘Kill the woman, burn the bus,’” he said. “They told me to leave and said they didn’t want to have a problem with me because I was Indian. But how could I? I told them it was my duty to protect that woman, so I could not go.” That night, several hundred migrant workers had surrounded a private bus that had run over and killed Mr Sakthivel Kumaravelu, 33, a construction worker from Tamil Nadu in India.
The rioters blamed the bus timekeeper, Madam Grace Wong Geck Woon, and the bus driver, Mr Lee Kim Huat, for the man’s death. They wanted to attack the duo as they holed up inside the bus. The rioters were especially upset with Madam Wong, because of a rumour she had pushed Mr Sakthivel off the vehicle. As timekeeper, she was responsible for the movement of buses transporting foreign workers from Little India to their dormitories in Jalan Papan in Jurong.
Little India riot: TTSH doctor surprised those injured and in shock were in police and SCDF uniforms
Dr Eric Wong (left) and Dr Phua Dong Haur were the two consultants on duty at Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s emergency department when the Little India riot broke out. ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
It was nearly the end of a shift at 10pm at Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s (TTSH) emergency department on Dec 8, 2013, when Dr Phua Dong Haur noticed something unusual. Several ambulances had arrived simultaneously at the drop-off point, and the paramedics looked especially flustered.
The ambulances were bringing in dozens of casualties, but these injured people were uniformed police and Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officers. Most of them were in shock, recalled Dr Phua, 50, who was one of two consultants on duty that night. Initially, Dr Phua did not register this, as the ones who usually escorted disturbed patients and the wounded to hospitals were lying on stretchers.
The ambulance crew told him there was some unrest around Serangoon Road and more casualties were expected. In total, 62 people – 37 police officers, 12 SCDF officers, five private security officers from Certis and eight members of the public – were injured in the riot.
Little India riot: 18 injured, 27 arrested
Chaos broke out in Little India last night (Dec 8), after a crowd of hundreds surrounded a coach at the junction of Race Course Road and Hampshire Road that knocked down and killed an Indian national.
The riot, which the police said involved about 400 people, broke out around 9.30pm. The police said 27 South Asians have been arrested. More could be hauled in as investigations continue. The case has been classified as rioting with dangerous weapons.
In total, there were 18 casualties including 10 police officers, four Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) personnel, as well as the coach driver - whom the police said is Singaporean - and his assistant. Six remained at Tan Tock Seng hospital overnight but their conditions were “not serious”, the authorities said.
The night chaos broke out: Little India riot, 10 years on
A decade ago, one man’s death sparked a riot that shocked the nation. It started with a fatal traffic accident and erupted into Singapore's first riot since the 1960s. The rioting left 54 officers and eight civilians injured, while 30 vehicles were damaged.
The Straits Times recreated the scene in 3D, using findings from the Committee of Inquiry (COI) report. Most of the action took place in Race Course Road, at its junction with Tekka Lane. It later spread across the length of Race Course Road – a distance of about 300m – between the junctions of Bukit Timah Road and Hampshire Road.
It all started from a fatal traffic accident at 9.21pm on Dec 8, 2013. Mr Sakthivel Kumaravelu, 33, was a construction worker from Tamil Nadu, India. Like others from his home town, he would head to Little India on Sunday and later catch a private bus in Tekka Lane back to his dormitory in Jalan Papan, Jurong. Five days after the riot took place in Singapore, the COI was convened to understand what happened that night.
Little India riot: A reconstruction
We reconstruct the two hours of horror at Little India;
- At 9.23 pm Sunday, a private bus crashes into and kills 33-year-old Indian national Sakthivel Kumaravelu at the junction of Race Course Road and Hempshire Road. The commotion draws a crowd.
- SCDF and police are called in, but they take over 30 minutes to respond. Lifestyle blogger and DJ Dowager alleges that the police arrived before the SCDF and act aggressively towards the crowd, raising tensions. A commentator who called himself ‘Ai’ and identified himself as a police officer rebuts these allegations on his blog, saying, “We were not aggressive”, adding that “the ambulance was there to help, but was blocked by them.”
- After the SCDF arrives, an SCDF paramedic pronounces the victim dead, and rescue workers move to extricate the body. The crowd attacks the rescue workers, throwing projectiles at them. The rescue workers retreat to their vehicles, and the mob turns on the private bus the driver and the conductor. Some of the rioters force the door open and drive the bus off the road. Other rioters smash the bus windows with poles and bins.
- Reddit user ‘drgoz’ says the crowd appeared to be “alcohol fuelled” and were throwing bricks, bottles and rubbish everywhere, and suggests the cause of the riot was the slow response time. drgoz is struck by a brick and leaves the scene.
- Another segment of the mob turns two police cars on their sides. This creates a path for an SCDF ambulance to drive off. More people join in, cheering and striking the overturned police cars. An SCDF rescue tender behind the police cars reverses away as more police arrive, knocking a newly-arrived car aside. The mob pelts the retreating SCDF vehicle with stones and other items.
- A group of rioters swarms another police car, armed with makeshift weapons. They push the car in a bid to overturn it but fail. The driver honks the horn in an attempt to drive them off. Meanwhile, another group of rioters sets two vehicles on fire. Other SCDF personnel nearby abandon their vehicles and flee the mob on foot. Two police officers are evacuated to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for head injuries. In total, the rioters damage many police and SCDF vehicles, including 16 police vehicles. Of these vehicles, three police cars and one ambulance were set on fire, causing multiple explosions. According to the police, ‘several’ private vehicles were also damaged.
Little India riot
The chronology of events on Sunday 8 December 2013
A riot that lasted about two hours erupted in Little India on Sunday, 8 December 2013, following a fatal traffic accident that had occurred along Race Course Road.1 Some 300 rioters took part in the unrest, which was the worst case of public violence in Singapore in over four decades.2 About 240 officers from the Singapore Police Force (SPF) as well as 56 from the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) were deployed to the scene.3 The riot left 54 responding officers and eight civilians injured, while 29 vehicles were damaged, five of which were burnt.4 As a result of the incident, measures such as increased police presence and alcohol restrictions have been implemented in Little India to prevent a repeat of such unrest.
Sunday is the most common weekly day off for South Asian transient foreign workers in Singapore, majority of whom work in the construction industry. Tens of thousands of these workers – most of whom hail from the state of Tamil Nadu, India – visit Little India on Sunday evenings to shop, run errands and socialise with friends. Besides public transport, private bus services are available on Sundays from the foreign workers’ dormitories to Little India under an initiative led by the Land Transport Authority. There are two boarding locations in Little India for the private buses. The one on Tekka Lane is overseen by the Singapore School Transport Association (SSTA), and the other along Hampshire Road by the Singapore School and Private Hire Bus Owners’ Association. Before the riot occurred, the private buses ferried about 23,000 workers to Little India every Sunday.
The accident that sparked the riot occurred at 9.21 pm on 8 December 2013. It killed Sakthivel Kumaravelu, a 33-year-old construction worker from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.Before the traffic accident happened, Kumaravelu had boarded a private bus on Tekka Lane to return to his dormitory in Jalan Papan. However, some workers then complained to timekeeper Wong Geck Woon – who at the time was working for the SSTA and in charge of keeping track of bus arrival and departure times – that Kumaravelu was drunk and had jumped the queue for boarding the bus.9 It was the SSTA’s policy not to ferry intoxicated passengers. At this point, Kumaravelu was said to be walking unsteadily and had dropped his bermuda shorts to his knees. Wong told him to disembark, which he eventually complied. Shortly thereafter, Kumaravelu started chasing after the same private bus as it was moving off from the boarding location.11 He caught up with the bus when it stopped briefly before making a left turn onto Race Course Road. As the bus began to make the turn, Kumaravelu – who was on the left side of the bus – stretched out his right hand and placed it on the moving bus. He then lost his balance and fell face-down into the path of the bus’s left front wheel. He was run over and died instantly.
2013 Little India riot
Time Line: Sunday 8 Dec 2013
The 2013 Little India riot took place on 8 December 2013 after a fatal accident occurred at SST 21:23 at the junction of Race Course Road and Hampshire Road in Little India, Singapore, causing angry mobs of passers-by to attack the bus involved and emergency vehicles that had by then arrived at the location. About 300 migrant labourers were involved in the riot which lasted for around two hours. This was the second riot in post-independence Singapore, and the first in 44 years since the 1969 race riots.
The riot continued for approximately two hours, and the situation was brought under control before midnight. Officers from the Special Operations Command (SOC) and Gurkha Contingent were deployed. An estimated 300 police officers were dispatched to deal with the rioting. A witness reported that rioters at the scene were intoxicated with alcohol and threw beer bottles. By 23:45, all rioters had dispersed to the surrounding areas.
Twenty-five emergency vehicles were damaged in the riots, alongside five that were set on fire. Video footage uploaded on the Internet shows rioters pushing police cars on their sides and setting an ambulance on fire. 39 police, four civil defence and auxiliary officers were injured. Early estimates put the number of rioters at 400, later reduced to 300 in the aftermath of the riot. The Singapore Police Force dispatched 300 riot police. The police made 27 arrests in relation to the riots. In a police statement released to the media on 9 December, it was specified that of those arrested, 24 were migrant labourers from India, two were migrant labourers from Bangladesh and one was a Singaporean permanent resident. Subsequent investigations revealed that the two Bangladeshis and the Singaporean permanent resident were not involved in the incident
related: 1969 race riots of Singapore
