Man arrested over bloody slashing incident at Orchard Plaza
The police at the scene of the incident on Sunday. The case is being investigated as one of voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous means. Photo: Best Viral Videos/Facebook
SINGAPORE — A 23-year-old man has been arrested, as graphic photos of the aftermath of a brawl at Orchard Plaza early on Sunday (Nov 27) circulated widely on social media on Monday.
The police are investigating the case as one of voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous means. It is not known if there were more assailants involved in the incident. The weapon used is also not known. An unidentified man, 28, was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for multiple injuries and was understood to be in stable condition.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force said it was alerted to the incident at 5.50am on Sunday. A spokesman said the victim was drowsy when paramedics got to him.
Photos of the aftermath, posted on the Facebook page of Best Viral Videos at around midnight on Monday, showed a man dressed in T-shirt and jeans lying supine in a large pool of blood.
Blood-drenched paper napkins were strewn around him in one of the photos. Another photo showed police officers near a pool of blood outside Starz Thai disco and Tha Siam Thai Kitchen, on the fourth floor of the shopping centre.
As speculation on the incident grew, the management of Starz distanced itself from the incident, posting on Facebook that those involved in the incident were “customers of the Thai food cafe” and were not linked to the club. Best Viral Videos also took down some photos, adding in an update that some of the comments earlier in the day had contained inaccurate information.
The management of Orchard Plaza declined to comment. The mall houses mainly tuition centres, tailoring shops and beauty parlours, as well as several nightclubs and eateries that open until the wee hours.
When TODAY visited at 2pm on Monday, there were no traces of the incident and business was back to normal. Tenants interviewed said fights in the mall after dark were not uncommon.
Ms Cecilia Nana, 47, owner of One Employment Solutions & Services on the same level, said the blood on the floor had already been cleaned up when she arrived at 10am on Sunday.
“Sometimes, I see footprints or spit on the glass window. It is a common thing, but the management has become more proactive now and would clean before we come,” she said. “We are worried that somebody might also break our glass panes because we see footprints.”
Mr Raju Kripalani, who has operated a tailor shop at Orchard Plaza for 15 years, claimed that there are fights two to three times a month.
“We see blood stains, things broken here and there. They break the lights. Shops with metal shutters, they bang the shutter. Some shops without shutters, (they) break the glass panes while fighting,” said the 54-year-old.
A florist whose shop is two doors away from the site of the incident also said that in her nine years at the mall, she has seen blood prints on the walls and had the glass panes of her shop front shattered four times because of fights.
The florist in her 50s, who wanted to be known only as Madam Ang, speculated that the fight could be over a girl, adding that “mostly, they fight for girls here”.
