Man, 59, dies after fight between neighbours in Lengkok Bahru; one person arrested
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The police were alerted to the incident at about 4.45pm on July 20.
PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
SINGAPORE – A man died after a fight between neighbours at Block 55 Lengkok Bahru on July 20.
The police said a 59-year-old man who was arrested at the scene will be charged with murder on July 22. If convicted, he faces the death penalty.
Alerted to the incident at about 4.45pm on July 20, the police went to the scene and found a 59-year-old man lying motionless at the lift lobby on the 16th floor, the police told The Straits Times on July 21. He was taken to hospital and later died.
Preliminary investigations revealed both men knew each other.
Drops of blood and a bloody footprint were visible along the corridor when The Straits Times visited the block at about 11.45am on July 21.
ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
When ST visited the block at about 11.45am on July 21, drops of blood and a bloody footprint were visible along the corridor.
A resident who gave his name as Joel told ST that he found out about the incident while reviewing footage from the security camera outside his home, which captured audio of the two men arguing.
The police were alerted to the incident at about 4.45pm on July 20.
PHOTO: JOEL C.
In the footage seen by ST, two men can be heard shouting at each other, with one person threatening to hurt the other. The dispute lasted for about three minutes.
Joel, who works as a private tutor, said he had a cordial relationship with the dead man.
The man who died never got along with the other man, and “would take the stairs just to avoid him”, he added.
A 49-year-old resident who lives on the 15th floor said there had been a longstanding feud between the two neighbours.
The resident, who moved into the same block about four years ago, said the two men, who lived several units apart from each other on the 16th floor, would start arguing in the morning.
He believed both the dead man and the other man lived in two-room flats. “They would be topless and start shouting Hokkien vulgarities at each other from about 7.30am,” he said.
The neighbour, who had not spoken to both men, said: “No one thought it would escalate to this.”
Another neighbour who declined to be named said a knife was thrown from the 16th floor and landed in front of a coffee shop.
A knife found on the ground that was believed to have been thrown from the 16th floor.
PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO READER
There have been several knife-related incidents reported in recent months.
There were 137 knife-related incidents in 2025, a slight increase from the 131 cases in 2024, said the police in their release of annual physical crime numbers in February.
On Sept 24, 2025, a violent attack over a noise dispute between neighbours resulted in the death of a 30-year-old Vietnamese woman.
The fight allegedly broke out in the morning at Block 323 Yishun Central, with a man using a knife to injure the woman and her husband.
The man, Koh Ah Hwee, 66, was charged with murder the next day.
On May 26, a 21-year-old woman died after she was stabbed by a 22-year-old man near the lift landing on the 12th floor of Block 248 Choa Chu Kang Avenue 2.
The man, who later fell from the same block and was taken to hospital, was charged with murder.
A 70-year-old man died on March 9 after he got into a fight with a 48-year-old man in a red-light area in Geylang. ST understands that the elderly man suffered stab wounds to the chest.