Key areas police in Geylang will focus on

Key areas police in Geylang will focus on

SINGAPORE - The police will continue to focus on a few key areas in the fight against crime in Geylang, Superintendent Loh Kah Wai said.

Five fast-response cars are deployed for incidents in the lorongs. Two dozen officers are on foot patrol.

This is on top of implementing a community policing system that came into effect this year, and boosting ties with stakeholders and grassroots leaders in the community.

In vice-related matters, plainclothes officers from units like the Criminal Investigation Department will continue to check nightclubs and massage parlours, close down gambling dens and round up streetwalkers. About 4,000 streetwalkers were arrested in Geylang last year.

At street level, other agencies are also involved in policing Geylang. Agencies such as the Central Narcotics Bureau, Singapore Customs and Health Sciences Authority mount joint operations against illegal drug sales, contraband cigarettes or illegal hawking.

Ideally, an enhanced police presence is needed but that "is beyond the scope of our current resources, and we definitely welcome more resources to achieve this goal," Supt Loh said.

MONITORING

Technology will also be playing a bigger role in helping Geylang NPC monitor the crime situation.

In two years, Geylang will be heavily monitored by surveillance cameras.

Bedok Police Division Commander Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alvin Moh said: "We will be installing about 200 closed-circuit televisions in Geylang. Every lorong will have police surveillance cameras.

"We will also light up Geylang. Dark alleys in Geylang will soon be a thing of the past. This is one of our crime-fighting strategies which we have been working on over the past few months.

"In tandem with population growth, the crowd in Geylang has grown bigger, and this attracts even more unsavoury characters with criminal intentions there.

"We have been devoting more police resources in Geylang over the years, resulting in the steady drop in crime. There will be no let-up in our continuous efforts to keep Geylang safe."

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What MP and top cop said

What Member of Parliament for Marine Parade GRC, Associate Professor Fatimah Lateef, said in a personal Facebook post on Monday:

She has waited a very long time for the authorities to effect changes in Geylang.

"Hundreds of hours (maybe more) of meeting police, anti-vice, agencies (multiple) and yet I am still waiting for their CONCRETE action plan."

If prostitution has to continue in Geylang, it should be kept systematic, clean, indoors, organised and regulated properly.

"These are not too difficult to do if the will is there."

What Police Commissioner Ng Joo Hee said about Geylang during his testimony last Wednesday at the Committee of Inquiry hearings into the Little India riot:

There is a "hint of lawlessness" and hostility against the police. On one occasion, a police officer trying to arrest a gambling store operator was beaten up.

On another occasion, a police car parked in Geylang was vandalised and its windscreen smashed in.

"Most worrying about Geylang is that there is an overt hostility and antagonism towards the police."

There were more cases of rioting, assault and affray cases in Geylang (49) last year than in Little India (25).

"Today, despite the riot in Little India, I worry more for Geylang than about Serangoon Road."

Troopers from the police's Special Operations Command conducted 41 anti-crime patrols in Geylang, compared with 16 in Little India.

"There is nowhere else in Singapore which is more policed or policed more intensely than the 20-odd lorongs on either side of Geylang Road."

This article was published on April 2 in The New Paper.

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