A defamatory letter with two hell notes attached was sent to PAP Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
The letter was signed off as “Sungei Road Market’s President”, but the Singapore Police committed an obvious blunder and instead raided the Chairman of the Association for the Recycling of Second Hand Goods (ARSHG) at Sungei Road Market.
The Chairman of ARSHG, Koh Eng Koon – known as Ah Koon, is a 76-year-old elderly poor who hawk second-hand goods at Sungei Road. The old man live in an one-room rental flat with his 72-year-old wife who works as a cleaner. On the 12am midnight of Thursday (Apr 27), two plainclothes police officers raided his rental flat and conducted a thorough search on all his belongings. Ah Koon’s phone was taken away on the spot and he had to make a police statement on Friday afternoon.
Speaking to state media Straits Times in Chinese, Ah Koon said he is innocent and somebody else has set him up. Ah Koon pointed out that he does not understand English and can only communicate in Mandarin – the letter was written in English and addressed to “Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and MPs”. The letter was sent to state media TodayOnline and DPM Tharman received one too, which the latter lodged a police report.
However, Ah Koon has earlier in February this year started a public petition pleading the government to issue the tenants of the 80-year-old Sungei Road Flea Market a new site to sell their second hand goods. Ah Koon garnered 4,000 signatures but the government refuse to listen or compensate. Most of the tenants at the flea market are elderly poor who are forced to collect used equipment to sell at the market.