SINGAPORE: Singapore said yesterday it will deport 53 South Asian workers and pursue criminal charges against 28 others for involvement in the city-state’s first riot in more than four decades.
“We have taken strong and decisive action to charge and to repatriate those who took part in the riot to send a strong signal that we will not tolerate actions by anyone which threaten law and order in Singapore,” Home Affairs Minister Teo Chee Hean told a news conference.
The riot on December 8 by hundreds of South Asian workers has forced the tightly controlled city-state to examine how it deals with the presence of nearly a million low-paid foreign workers, who drive its economic growth.
The rampage, which erupted after an Indian man was killed by a bus in a district known as Little India, saw 39 people injured, including police officers, and 25 vehicles destroyed.
Fifty-two of the 53 men being deported are Indian nationals and one is a Bangladeshi, said police commissioner Ng Joo Hee.
They were hauled up yesterday morning and will be deported after travel and administrative arrangements are settled, he said.
AFP
