MUCH OF THE ACTION on Wednesday, the day of the escape, centred on Goldhill Estate as police and Special Operations Command vehicles converged on the area. The police went door to door, checking cars and questioning residents in the estate. ST PHOTO: DESMOND LIM

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The clutch of police and Special Operations Command vehicles that appeared in the Dunearn Road area hinted to residents there that something was afoot.

Calls began trickling in to The Straits Times newsroom from curious Singaporeans, wondering what was up.

No one knew it at the time, but at 4.05pm that day, Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari had broken out of the Internal Security Department (ISD) detention centre in Whitley Road, kick-starting a chain of events that would leave Singaporeans riveted, anxious and curious - sometimes all at once.

By a little after 8pm on Wednesday, the news was out, released to the media in the form of a short press statement which simply said Mas Selamat had escaped. Few other details were given.

Over the next 72 hours, the story of the manhunt for Mas Selamat became the talk across Singapore, at coffee shops, in offices, on the Internet.

As marketing executive Jerome Tan, 23, put it, 'this has been the common topic of discussion these few days, at work, with my family, friends'.

'It's all everyone has been talking about. We were all shocked and surprised that it happened, and everyone has questions about how it could happen.'

Mrs Alicia Liew, 45, a housewife, agreed.

'Even in the market, everyone is talking about it. Even the kids are fascinated.'

The news has not been confined to Singapore, either.

Newspapers across the globe have run reports on it, Interpol has put out a worldwide alert, and even people elsewhere are talking about it.

Apart from the gravity of the situation, one common thread runs through the reports and chatter.

As Ms Imelda Irawan, 29, an Indonesian graduate student at the Nanyang Technological University, put it: 'I didn't think something like this would happen in Singapore, never in my dreams.

'Even my friends and family abroad have called and e-mailed to ask what has happened in Singapore, and whether there is any danger.'

She added: 'Everyone is talking about it, in schools, even at dinner at restaurants.'

For a story with several firsts, yesterday brought another.

In what is quite likely the first time a common MMS had been sent to millions, SingTel, StarHub and M1 sent a message containing Mas Selamat's picture to all their mobile phone subscribers: about 5.5 million in all.

Anxiety spreads

THE story of how a search grew bigger and bigger began on Wednesday night, when much of the action was centred on the Goldhill Estate, with police going house to house, checking cars entering and leaving the area, and questioning residents.

As news began to spread, a new element - anxiety - emerged among Singaporeans.

The fact that a terrorist who had planned to hijack a plane and crash it into Changi Airport was on the loose worried some.

Among them was Mrs Jasmine Lim, 42, a Goldhill Estate resident.

She was anxious enough to call her two older children, aged 22 and 19, to return home early because she was worried for their safety.

Said Mrs Lim, whose two younger children were at home with her at the time: 'I have a security alarm and I normally don't activate it so early, but tonight I will.'

As the hours ticked away, other unprecedented events were reported.

For one thing, plainclothes police officers went door to door in the wee hours, after many home owners had turned in, and asked if they could search within.

No one said no, although one Malcolm Road resident, brushing the sleep out of his eyes, told police: 'Do what you have to, but try not to step on the plants.'

By the time dawn broke, what was the biggest manhunt in Singapore's history had grown even bigger, with Singapore Armed Forces Guards unit troops and military policemen roped in as well.

More than 12 hours after the breakout, meanwhile, the news was beginning to hit home - hard - for many Singaporeans.

Some woke to the huge headlines splashed across newspapers, others were caught in traffic tailbacks which resulted because of the checks, and parents taking their children to school felt the heavy police presence first-hand.

At the Singapore Chinese Girls' School (SCGS), Dr Patrick Goh, 47, who was ferrying his nine-year-old daughter to class, said: 'I have never seen so many police and military people around here. This is the real stuff.'

It was at some schools in the area that anxiety surfaced again.

While most parents took the news in their stride, the scale of the hunt made some uneasy, and they pulled their children from class.

One parent, who wanted to be known only as Ms Tan, said she felt 'very uneasy'.

Waiting in SCGS' general office at 6.50am to sign an early release form for her eight-year-old daughter, she said: 'Having a manhunt in Singapore is not normal. I can't bear leaving my daughter here when such a dangerous man is on the loose.'

Such reactions were not typical, however.

To most people, the questions uppermost in their minds were 'how did he do it?' and 'how could something like this happen in Singapore?'.

Part of the answer to the first question came in the afternoon.

Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng told Parliament that Mas Selamat had been taken out of his individual cell to go to the visitors' area to meet his family and had asked to use the toilet. That was when he made a break for it.

Mr Wong, who is also Home Affairs Minister, then made an apology, saying 'this should never have happened. I am sorry that it did'.

On the lookout

THE events were made for the Internet age, and theories, criticisms and 'what nows' burned up bandwidth.

On www.straitstimes.com alone, close to 1,500 postings on the topic had been recorded.

Many of the postings on the Internet took on a fairly predictable air: Most ripped into the authorities, while hordes of others theorised about how a man with a limp managed to get away.

But the irreverent nature that is a hallmark of Internet postings came to the fore time and again.

One wag used a little 'electrickery' and put up a poster: Based on the hit TV series Prison Break, it featured a picture of Mas Selamat digitally grafted onto the body of the show's protagonist, Michael Scofield, played by Wentworth Miller.

The punchline: The series' name was changed to Toilet Break.

Friday was to bring more unusual events.

In the morning, the search went up a notch - Singaporeans were enlisted as lookouts as posters of Mas Selamat went up at train stations, bus interchanges and even into some residents' mailboxes.

Few could remember this happening on such a large scale before, but within this development came another hint of how urgent the manhunt was, and just how caught up in the drama Singaporeans were.

Initially, the posters were only in English, and contained just two pictures of Mas Selamat - one of him with a moustache and goatee and another without - and the fact that he walked with a limp in his left leg and other basic information.

As calls for more information flooded in, however, police reacted rapidly to address them.

By Friday night, the posters were also going out in Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

Police also released Mas Selamat's height (about 1.58m) and weight (63 kg).

They responded to calls as well from the public for side-profile pictures of the terrorist by releasing these yesterday afternoon.

But as the search left its third day, Singaporeans began to publicly express doubts that the man would be found any time soon, despite some excitement on Friday night with news that a large police presence had been spotted in the Bukit Batok area.

However, despite some urgent tramping through the area, no sign of Mas Selamat was found, and as a rainy Saturday morning broke, activity died down, and overcast skies added to the gloom.

By evening, as some Singaporeans settled down to Saturday evening libations and others turned their attention to other, more mundane events, like Arsenal v Aston Villa on the telly, much of the excitement had gone.

In its place? A shake of the head, some resignation, not a little bit of wistfulness about how Singapore's reputation has been hurt, and off-colour gallows humour - people of all races greeting each other by saying 'Selamat petang' (good evening in Malay).

As Mr Tan, the marketing executive, put: 'Now, all we're discussing is the possibility that he has left the country.'

Mr Lee Song Lim, 56, a technician, agreed.

'We look at the posters of him all over, commit his face to memory, but basically that's all we can do,' he said.

'Till he's caught, I think we'll all just be in limbo.'

carl@sph.com.sg

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