SINGAPORE, Dec 10 — Hours after they quelled the riot in Little India on Sunday night, dozens of police officers — including elite troops — fanned out to various foreign worker dormitories when it was still dark, in an attempt to round up those who were present when the chaos broke out or were part of the angry mob.
They roused workers from their sleep and spent hours poring over identification papers and work permits. Some workers claimed they had to undress for officers to check if their bodies had injuries possibly sustained during the riot.
Mr Dharmaraj, 23, who stays at Avery Lodge, one of the dorms visited by the police, said: “I removed my shirt, (they) checked for scratches, injuries.”
One of the dormitories the officers visited is believed to be where Sakthivel Kumaravelu, the 33-year-old Indian national who was killed in the accident preceding the riot, was staying, the workers there told TODAY.
The company he worked for, Heng Hup Soon, which provides scaffolding for the construction industry, yesterday declined to answer queries.
When TODAY went to Avery Lodge — which houses construction and shipyard workers from India, Bangladesh, China and Myanmar and is located on Jalan Papan, near the West Coast — yesterday afternoon, several police cars and buses were parked outside, along with several lorries that were to have ferried the workers to construction sites.
Hundreds of foreign workers were kept within the dorm’s grounds by the police and did not go to work as they waited for their turn to be checked.
At about 4.30pm, some two dozen of them were brought onto a police bus. And 45 minutes later, about 10 workers were taken away.
When the police finally allowed the workers to leave the dorm, many looked relieved and streamed out to buy groceries.
The police subsequently visited Terusan Lodge I, located a short distance away.
Checks on the workers there carried on into the night. ― Today
