That night something out of the usual happened. It was unexpected and unwelcome.
It happened in the early mornings of Saturday roughly around 3.30AM. My house mate was sound asleep in her La-La land. Me... I was having insomnia and enjoying my hot cup of Milo and trying to fall asleep over that heavy book of Jane Austen.
Out of a sudden I heard someone speaking really loudly outside our door. First thought came to mind: somebody must be having a fight over the phone outside. Ignore it. While half way through Pride and Prejudice....my train of thoughts was interrupted by a serious of knocking on our door followed by male voices saying:" Police, Police. Open door."
A chill ran down my spine as I sat there on my bed hugging my comforter. What is going on out there? Why is the Police knocking on our main door? Something serious happened? But I didn't hear any siren or police car outside. Weird.......... Other than the male voices directly outside my door speaking in BM I didn't hear any voices of my neighbours. The situation is getting a bit suspicious. As I was half asleep my brain is kind of fuzzy. It felt a bit like in a dream. I walk out and woke my housemate up from the next room. She came out of the room looking even more fuzzy and sleepy-head looking then me.
With a sense of uncertainty we opened the wooden door. At least have a look and see what's going on. This is what came into our view:
Here I am just relating what happened that night. And to protect the identity of the people involved their faces are all censored. Don't worry. They are real policemen and nothing serious happened.
First thing they said when we opened the door:" Open door, we want to come in and search for a Malay lady. " In a quite....you know not so nice way. Guess u all can imagine how does it feel like. Just us girls in the house and a bunch of male policemen crowding our door and demanding to come in and search for some unknown woman. -_-........... We were both kind of dumbfounded by that command. We just keep on repeating there is no such person and them keep trying to demand entry. We got quite suspicious after we no answer from them about who are they, which police station they come from and why they are here. So I got back into my room to get a camera.
Among them there was one guy not wearing the green police vest. Ok. I got bad eye sight. With sleepiness hanging over my head and cloudy eyes, I can barely see clearly their faces. But he was the one keep on urging the policeman and us to open door and let him in to search for some malay girl. I guess he must be the one who lodge a report and in search of his lover. He seems to be highly emotional and very agitated.
We got quite uneasy as:
1. They did not show any ID or tell us who they are. ONLY AFTER I took a pic of them. One policeman near the gate quickly flashed his ID to us.
2. No siren sounded. No police car.
3. No search warrant.
4. No explanations on the reason they appear in front of our door.
5. Did not answer our questions about their identity and where they come from.
Just the above 5 reasons already quite freaky. We wasted no time and closed the door and call the police station. By that time I guess that group of real/fake policemen got tired and went off. The man who answered our phone sounded quite unhelpful. He told us since those men are gone there should be no problem. If you dare to come out then come and lodge a police report. We were like OMG. The whole night I am getting more and more speechless about people's attitude towards such things. Police or no Police. My housemate got quite pissed off by such a remark. She is like:" Asking girls to go to police station at 4AM in the morning after what happened?" Who knows don't go out nothing happened, later go out got ambushed by them. Since now they know there are no males in our house.
We got quite scared as to why those people came to our house. We stayed in a Chinese area where all our neighbors are Chinese. There is only one Malay family at the other corner of the whole block. So.... did they came to the wrong door? There is totally NO reason for them to come at all. We are just simple university students renting a place here. -_-......
We spent a restless night thinking up of all sorts of reasons as to why such thing happened. We were really scared that maybe they are impostors who tried to scare us into opening the door and let them in and do some horrible things. Rob or even rape us. WHo knows. Everyday there are so many such news in the papers.
Anyway, after barely sleep a wink we went to the police station to lodge a report. We encountered a not so satisfactory result there. The inspector in-charge is not very keen in finding out what's wrong. He just have a look at the pic we showed him and said these are our police officers and supporting policemen. He kept on giving us a lot of excuses like these policemen are young and very new. Do forgive them for not doing things in the systematic way. And he keep rubbing in : " you know lah.........Policeman when raiding a place a bit rude and brutal one lah." We were like eh.............is our place a night club or to be suspected of some illegal activity? -_-...........Felt quite degraded by such remark. I am just noting down what I observed throughout the whole interview. My friend was the one talking to the investigator. Not only he defend the policemen who were involved in the incident without listening to the details and he also didn't write down accurate informations on what happened. My friend need to ask him to correct some details of the police report that he was typing as a record. We told him 5 men wore police uniform with the green vest. We even got photos to prove! And he got the nerve to type on the computer : 5 unknown men!!! The whole report sounds like some unknown males came to our door and demand entry. Anyway, luckily he did correct some informations but he was still very reluctant to write down informations that may appear to be bad for the police image. I do realize what we are dealing with right now. At first we thought was some fake police, now it appears to be real policemen who were new at this and didn't do things according to the protocol.
We felt a bit easier now since it is confirmed to be real policemen. Don't have to worry about some unknown people coming to do us harm. But on the other hand it also means we are exposing the police not doing things properly. With a promise on further investigation and updates we went home. We totally lost the mood for any Christmas celebration at the church.
Around 8pm or so we got a call from the investigator requesting us to return to identify people involved in the case. Friend and I just look at each other and sigh... took the car key and drive out. This time the outcome was much better. We were informed that some mentally unstable man lodge a false police report to search for some unknown female. So.....yeah..........that's it. Unlucky us got to be drag into such a situation. To be awaken from a good night sleep, wasted whole day in the police station, under the fear and stress of unknown danger.-_-... That man was caught and situation was managed. Finally we thought ok. Great. We can go home and rest and forget about the whole thing. Who could have guessed what happened next???
We waited like an hour and half before we got our turn to see the busy inspector. So by the time we finished it was roughly around 9.30pm -10pm. Didn't wear my watch that day. I walked across the car park to return the visitor pass and out of no where and from the dark. A man approached me and Talked to me a very very rude way. Nobody ever talked so fiercely to me before! I was very shocked and just keep walking and got on to our car. That young man in a polo-T and jeans was shouting away and look as if wanna punch me. " Why u lodge a false report on me? Why U try to bring trouble to me?" " You think only you educated? I am also a degree holder!" " Think only u can sue? You will See! I will see you in court! " And much more....It was a blur as this person tried to stop our car and prevent us from leaving the police station. In the middle of all this shouting and threatening, I shouted "HELP!" towards the police guard house. I am screaming inside: ...why can't u all faster come stop this man coming near me??? Why are u all policeman in uniform sitting there looking dumb and as if watching a show??
OK...Guess what. This rude young man who is trying to threaten me is a real policeman. I am being harassed by a policeman in a police station. -_-...................
Both of us was quite shaken by this. It was a while before I regain my thoughts and ask my friend to drive back and tell that guy. Fine! Let's go see ur boss and see what he has to say. Inside we almost broke down in tears as such sudden attack from unknown person. I can not tell you exactly how we felt. Just pure FEAR.
It was cold and dark and we don't really know and understand what's going on. We don't know what to do. There is nobody to help us, Nobody to rely on. Those policeman just sort of bully us in a way as we are girls and no parental guidance over us.
Then it was followed by some ugly details and that guy very reluctantly apologized to us. He was making a lot of noises while in front of the inspector and keep trying to put a lot of blame on me and my friend for framing him. -_- speechless.... We don't even recognize him.
The inspector gave him a proper lecture on how he should behaved and how his action and behaviour is giving the police a bad image and all. Deep down we in our hearts our fear of the policeman grows. As that young hot blooded policeman was staring at us revengefully. I can roughly guessed what happened. He must have been lectured or told off by his superiors over the mistakes they made the night before. He felt really pissed off and tried to put the blame on us as he can't swallow the bitter pill. No matter what this is not how things are done. I already toned down a lot of the drama and leave out some not so nice things about them. I don't want anything bad to happen to the rude policeman. Still it is not right for him to behave in such a way too.
In the end, I am thankful everything solved and turn out nicely. Thank you to the authorities and elders' guidance and protection. Hope we will continue to enjoy a peaceful life living in this small town. Hope we don't have to worry being tailed by people, being marked down as they know where we live and our car plate number and our daily routines. We could be such easy targets. Moving house is not much use too. This town is too small. Too easy to track down.
So hope by sharing this incident, everyone can be more aware and keep our community safe. If that night some of our neighbour come out and have a look we may not be in such great fear. Btw after this incident we do realize how people react to this type of situation too. Kind of funny that it turn out to be the best way to see who are true friends. How some people can play with u but not suffer with u.
Thank u for your support and concern my dear friends. I will always keep that in mind and how grateful I felt for what ever you all have said. It keeps my heart feeling warm warm.
It came as quite a shock to me.
