Boon Lay attack: Groom's wedding marred by assault on friends after returning from temple ceremony

SINGAPORE — What was supposed to be a joyous occasion for the groom on his wedding day turned into a bloody one when two of his friends were slashed by attackers shortly after the wedding party returned home following a temple ceremony that morning.

Two suspects involved in the attack were arrested after a 23-hour manhunt by the police on Thursday (April 7).

Sometime after 4pm on Wednesday, Mr Emmanuel Ravi, a 26-year-old operation assistant in the marine industry, had returned home from his wedding ceremony and completed his post-wedding rituals when he received a call from his friend, who sounded panicky, asking him to quickly go to the void deck of a housing block near his.

His friend, along with several others, had driven to Block 177 Boon Lay Drive where Mr Emmanuel lives after the post-wedding lunch and arrived there about 15 minutes after he did.

When he went down, Mr Emmanuel said that his mind went blank at the sight that he saw.

“I saw one of my friends bleeding very badly. His head had been cut quite deep.

“I held on to him and asked him if he was okay. Then while I was talking to him, two guys came to slash him again,” Mr Emmanuel told TODAY on Thursday over the phone.

Mr Emmanuel said that he tried to block his friend to protect him and told the two perpetrators, who were wielding long knives, that it was his wedding day and to not cause trouble.

“I said to them, ‘This is my friend, just back off’.”

Mr Emmanuel recognised one of the two perpetrators as a mutual friend.

There were many passers-by around them at the time and the two attackers eventually ran off in the direction of Block 178, he said.

The police and an ambulance turned up shortly after, Mr Emmanuel said.

The groom later came to learn that another friend had also been chased around the neighbourhood and slashed by the perpetrators.

Video clips and images of the incident have been circulating on social media since Wednesday. They showed two men dressed in black, wielding what appears to be machetes at a car park.

The two men are seen confronting someone off screen while pacing back and forth.

On Thursday morning, the police said that at around 5pm on Wednesday, they responded to calls for assistance at Block 175 Boon Lay Drive, where two men had injured two other men with weapons.

The two male victims, aged 22 and 23, were conscious when taken to the hospital.

A manhunt operation was initiated to track down the two men involved in the attack.

"Preliminary investigations revealed that the duo involved are known to the two victims,” the police said in their statement.

When asked, Mr Emmanuel said that he did not know why the perpetrators had attacked his friends.

“The only thing I keep thinking is, ‘Why did this have to be on my wedding day?’ My friends came for my wedding and everything was good throughout the day.

“But when we came home, this thing happened. I really cannot digest it.”

The first victim, whom he attended to, underwent an operation while the second is now in intensive care, he added.

He is visiting them for the first time on Thursday since the attack took place.

Speaking to TODAY at her home on Thursday, Ms Manvizhi, Mr Emmanuel’s mother, said that she learnt about the incident on Wednesday evening.

Her son and relatives had kept the news from her because she had been unwell and they did not want to worry her.

“I am very disappointed that this happened on the day of the wedding,” the 50-year-old housewife, who goes by a single name, said in Tamil.

“I feel very sad for the parents of the two boys. As a mother, I can understand the worry that they are going through. I have been praying for them since yesterday.”

Some residents said that they witnessed the attack while at home.

Mr Latip Satari, a 55-year-old delivery driver living in Block 176, went to his kitchen window after hearing a woman shout. This was sometime after 4pm.

He saw one of the victims, bleeding from the left side of his head, and two attackers chasing a second person with long knives all the way to a coffee shop at Block 175.

Mr Latip estimated that the knives were 40cm long.

He later saw someone else bleeding, being attended to by friends at a grass patch next to the playground of Block 176.

Another eyewitness, Ms Shazeena Beve, a 19-year-old who works in the food-and-beverage industry, said that she saw two police vans and about four or five police cars arriving after 4pm.

The police officers had shields and cordoned off some parts of the neighbourhood, including the areas near the coffee shop at Block 175.

Residents who spoke to TODAY on Thursday afternoon said that fights were common in the neighbourhood but those involving weapons and occurring in broad daylight were rare.

Knowing that the attackers and victims involved in Wednesday’s incident knew each other, these residents were concerned that they, and particularly young children, could get caught in their dispute if not resolved.

Mr Abdul Anwar Abdul Malik, a 35-year-old resident who is in-between jobs, said: “It’s not safe for young kids.

“I’m scared that they may take the knife and hit the wrong people.”