Girl's body bore signs of injury; father expected in court today
By
Khushwant Singh & Serene Luo
RESIDENTS of Block 191 Boon Lay Drive are shocked that a two-year-old in their midst is dead from unnatural causes.
They have also heard that Natalie Nikie Alisyia Sallehan's 26-year-old father has been arrested in connection with her death, now classified as murder.
Housewife Normah Udin, 43, who lives three doors away from the family on the 11th floor, was taken aback when told of the child's death on Tuesday. She had not heard anything out of the ordinary that evening, though she did see the toddler's father Sallehan Alaudin and mother Rozana Mohd Yusof hurrying along the corridor.
'He was carrying a child who was motionless and I heard the wife telling him in Malay: 'Quickly, quickly! You have money, don't you?'', Madam Normah recalled. She thought they were rushing down to a taxi, but it was an ambulance they were expecting.
Singapore Civil Defence Force paramedics found the child's 26-year-old housewife-mother in the void deck, cradling the toddler whose body was riddled with serious injuries. The paramedics did not say where the father, a night-shift kitchen cleaner, was at that time.
Doctors at the National University Hospital could not revive the child, who was dead by 9.30pm. Police turned up at the flat 30 minutes later, and were there gathering evidence until 2am.
Yesterday, no one was at the flat. Madam Rozana is believed to be in mourning in a relative's home. She has hired lawyer Manoj Nandwani to defend her husband, who is expected in court today.
Madam Normah said the kitchen cleaner, his wife and their three children moved into the rental flat last October.
Natalie was their middle child; the eldest child looked to be about three and the youngest, three months old. Their mother would lay newspapers along the corridor, where the older two would play. They did not mix with other children.
The couple kept mostly to themselves, but smiled when they passed neighbours.
Next-door neighbour Muhamad Yazid Mahat, 36, an operations assistant at PSA Corp, said that the three children were left on their own almost every day. The baby could be heard crying for hours.
