For six years, Madam Grace Wong stood on a street on Little India from 6pm to 11pm, where, as a bus coordinator for private-hire buses that run services between Little India and foreign worker dormitories, she made sure the buses arrived at and left their stops on time.

But after she was attacked by a mob on Sunday, when an Indian worker was killed by a bus, Mdm Wong, 38, is uncertain if she will return to work.

Mdm Wong sustained bruises and lesions on her face from the attack and fractured her right arm shielding her face from the blows. When her four-year-old daughter saw her after the riot, she burst into tears. To calm her down, Mdm Wong told her she had been careless and hurt herself. “She’s too young, I’ll explain to her when she’s older,” she said.

One of her colleagues was so frightened by what happened to her that she too, has doubts about going back to work.

Unruly behaviour is not new to Mdm Wong — who is so familiar with her job that she knows when workers are paid and likely to drink — but she stuck to her job as she felt the pay was worth the “risk”. She is now waiting to hear from her employer, the Singapore School Transport Association — whose member bus companies run some of the services — about what will happen next.

She has also been deluged with attention from well-wishers since the incident. During lunch at the coffee shop with her daughter and husband, neighbours and shop owners stopped by to talk to her. Her Member of Parliament, Mr Sitoh Yih Pin, also visited her on Tuesday with a hamper.

She hopes the foreign worker in a plaid shirt who was captured on video ushering her away from the rioters that night will be located, “so I can thank him for helping me”.

Kok Xing Hui