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Residents, shops pick up the pieces after riot

SINGAPORE — Shattered concrete pavement slabs, overturned dustbins and broken glass bottles were among the items Little India residents, businesses and cleaners had to deal with in the aftermath of the riot on Sunday night.

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SINGAPORE — Shattered concrete pavement slabs, overturned dustbins and broken glass bottles were among the items Little India residents, businesses and cleaners had to deal with in the aftermath of the riot on Sunday night.

Damaged, burned hulks of police cars were quietly towed away from the area before morning broke, along with the wrecked tour bus that knocked down and killed a foreign worker in an accident which sparked the violent chaos.

Madam Denise Kwok, 49, who has stayed at Block 663 on Buffalo Road for eight years, said she had never experienced such “aggressive” commotion.

Despite the added presence of Cisco officers patrolling the area currently, Mdm Kwok remained unsure whether the authorities could prevent a repeat of Sunday’s riot in future.

“It’s serious. We don’t know what they are really unhappy about, or if they are trying to show or prove something,” she added.

Another resident in the area, Mr Hari Kumaran, who lives at Block 668, heard explosions and chanting in Tamil during the riot.

“I feel like it’s not secure (here and) anything can happen just like that,” said the 27-year-old, who has lived in the area all his life.

Clean-up crews deployed by Veolia Environmental Services to sweep up the debris and mess on the streets told TODAY the task seemed endless.

“We swept the roads more than once and washed the roadsides multiple times. It’s already past 11am and we are still cleaning,” said Mr Juwahir Bin Ahmad, 60, who works as a cleaner.

“There are still small pieces of broken glass bottles on the floor that we have to pick up and throw away. There are holes on the grass because they (the rioters) picked up the concrete slabs and used them as weapons,” he said.

During the unrest, the Shree Lakshminarayan Temple in the area had to lock its gates. About 50 guests attending a wedding there stayed inside and left only after midnight.

Some businesses closed early for fear of looting or damage to their shops.

Yesterday morning, they returned to the remains of spoiled and damaged goods strewn everywhere.

Mr Sathiya Moorthy, 33, a shopkeeper at Mullai Trading, which sells vegetables next to the Little India MRT Station, decided to pull down the shutters on Sunday when it was clear that something was brewing.

“The people were noisy and (they were) going to fight,” he said.

When he returned yesterday morning, he found his eggplants and tomatoes trodden and squashed on the floor.

A fire hydrant nearby leaked continually due to the damage caused.

With the help of two workers, Mr Moorthy threw away the damaged goods, worth about S$500 to S$600.

Another shopkeeper in the area, Mr Gurpreet Singh, also closed his store early on Sunday.

He returned yesterday to find broken shards of beer bottles and pieces of concrete slabs lying outside the shop.

Despite the mayhem, both shopkeepers said no goods were stolen. Additional reporting by Siau Ming En

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