New paper, Singapore
March 25, 2005
It was the biggest raid of an underground hideot. Close to 60 officers flushed out 37 suspected illegals living in two drains. The New Paper team gives you an exclusive look at their amazing living condition
Cooking stoves, a shower, beds, books and even altars. These men had all the things you'd find in an average home.
Except their home was far from average:
It was 100m inside two storm drains that ran below Tampines Road.
It was pitch dark and you had to wade through ankle-deep mud at certain points.
For 37 Myanmar men, it was their underground home, away from prying eyes.
But they could not hide forever.
Their makeshift home was raided at about 2am on Tuesday by close to 60 officers from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) and the police.
The New Paper team went into the drain yesterday for a look.
And what we saw was quite amazing.
The drain men had built a home in the gutter with homely touches except for the lack of running water and electricity.
The living areas were spread out along the winding turns of the drains.
Deputy Superintendent of Police A Muhd Thauheed, 35, told The New Paper the men lived in six groups, each with its own cooking and sleeping areas.
They would enter the drains - about 5m wide and 2m high - through an opening near Hun Yeang Road. From there, they had to walk about 100m to reach the living quarters of the first group.
There is a coffee shop and a few Chinese temples nearby but the area is mostly deserted at night. The Tampines Dormitories - which houses foreign workers - is a few hundred metres away.
Said DSP Thauheed, head of Field Operations Command at ICA: 'They used the same entrance to get in and out.
'So even though they were living in scattered pockets, everyone would have known everyone else.'
Some slept on canvas sheets on the ground and used thin cotton blankets for cover.
Others seemed to have spent more effort, making elevated beds and tables using rusty poles that had been sawn off.
Wooden planks were placed over these poles to use as makeshift beds. Some even used discarded wooden doors to sleep on.
For pillows, they simply wrapped newspapers over a rectangular piece of styrofoam.
NOVELS AND MAGAZINES
Each 'bed' was surrounded by personal items. There were Myanmar novels and magazines.
One man's bedside reading stood out among the rest. His well-thumbed book, Physics for GCE O levels, was in good condition and even came with illustrations.
Someone had also hung a mirror beneath a manhole so they could groom themselves.
The drains were clean despite so many people living together without basic amenities like toilets.
The officers were also surprised at how the men had adapted the drains to meet their needs.
In particular, they had made a round hole high up in the wall to direct running water to the area.
It is not known where the source of the water is, but this was where the men showered. At times, the pressure was so strong that the water would spurt more than a metre from the wall.
'Necessity is the mother of all inventions. But even we were surprised at some of the things they had done to make their living conditions better,' said DSP Thauheed.
Empty plastic bottles of mineral water and soft drinks suggested they used the drain water only for washing.
In one section, however, sandbags were used to filter the drain water. The presence of toothbrushes suggested the water might have been used when brushing their teeth.
The men did their own cooking, mostly with charcoal stoves. But someone had also moved a stove in and connected it to a gas cylinder.
There were bags of rice, bottles of salt and tidbits placed in these cooking areas.
Clothes were strewn on the ground. There were even a few altars, with fruit placed as offerings.
NO STENCH
The drains were well-ventilated and there was no stench.
Neither was it pest-infested - we did not encounter any rats or mosquitoes but saw a turtle swimming near the entrance.
Small consolation, considering there was no electricity. The drains are dark even during the day. The manholes located sporadically throughout the place provided the only light.
When we went into the drains, we could barely see more than a few metres ahead, despite having five torchlights among us.
The men who lived there had fashioned lamps out of plastic bottles and candles. Lumps of wax from burnt candles could also be seen beside their beds.
These are storm drains, not tidal ones, and so are not affected by rising tides. But at places we had to wade through ankle-deep mud. And when it rained, water would come in through the manholes as well.
The entry point of the drains is at the mouth of Sungei Api Api canal along Tampines Road.
DSP Thauheed said the men would leave the drains during the day and return at night. Some were odd-job labourers.
They even took turns acting as lookout near the entrance of the drains at night.
It is not known how long they had lived there. But someone had painted the numbers 2004 on the ceiling, perhaps indicating they had been there since last year.
The men living in the drain wouldn't miss watching football on television at the local coffee shop.
That was one of the things the officers found out by observing their habits.
So the officers knew when not to raid the underground hideout.
If there was a football match on television, the men wouldn't be there. They would be at the coffee shop.
The raid, around 2am on Tuesday, came after two months of surveillance and planning.
During that time, officers studied detailed plans of the drainage network to make sure they had the escape routes covered.
Some officers even managed to sneak into the drains to videotape the hideout.
Deputy Superintendent of Police A Muhd Thauheed, 35, head of Field Operations Command at the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, was one of those in charge of the operation.
He said: 'All these little details were taken into consideration. We even chose a night when there were no football matches.
'We knew most of them would probably be asleep and that would increase our chances of catching them by surprise.'
The men arrested are all Myanmar nationals aged between 19 and 40.
PENALTY
Thirty-five of them were charged in court with illegal entry yesterday. Another man was charged with overstaying, while the last one has not been charged yet for medical reasons. If convicted, they can be jailed up to six months and given at least three strokes of the cane.
DSP Thauheed explained that the element of surprise was very important for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the men had been living there for some time and were known to possess items such as knives and metal poles.
'These things could be used as weapons against us. We didn't want to alert them to our presence as that would give them time to find these items,' said DSP Thauheed.
Besides, the drains are connected to smaller drains and some could try to sneak away through them.
Officers first arrested the man who was acting as a lookout near the entrance to the drain.
They broke up into groups, with some remaining above the ground to guard the manholes.
The others stormed the drain in darkness, approaching from two different directions, so that the men would be trapped in between.
'After some time, our eyes got used to the dark,' said DSP Thauheed.
'But it was so bad in some places that the officers had to hold hands and form a human chain so that they knew where they were going.' In some places, the water came halfway up their calves. They also had to contend with sinking mud and steep steps that were half a metre high.
'There was one stretch where it was a case of run, run, jump and then run, run, jump again - all in the dark,' said DSP Thauheed.
'We couldn't afford to stop and take our own sweet time.'
Every officer had an ordinary torchlight, but some also carried high-powered ones that could pierce through the darkness up to 100m away.
They were turned on when the officers encountered the sleeping men, some of whom were clad only in their underwear.
'Some of them tried to escape through the manholes but they were picked up by officers waiting above the ground,' said DSP Thauheed.
'Others stuck their heads up, saw our officers and jumped down again.'
DSP Thauheed said that most of the men did not struggle at all.
'Maybe they were glad that their ordeal was over. One even went back to sleep after we rounded them up,' he said.
'The fact that these people resorted to living in drains goes to show how tough life can be for immigration offenders.
'We will hunt them down no matter where they hide.'