SINGAPORE - An online petition was launched on Wednesday (Sept 19) to rescue a cat from being removed by the Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council, but the town council has said that there were never any plans to remove or relocate the cat.

The petition claims to "understand that the Pasir Ris office of the Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council is intending to remove our beloved community cat, Ginger, from our neighbourhood, at Pasir Ris Street 11", and received more than 19,000 signatures as of about 9pm on Thursday.

It also stated that this plan to remove the cat was "supposedly due to one individual complaint claiming that Ginger had scratched his/her car just by sitting on the roof of the vehicle".

Ginger is described in the petition as "quite the community star who loved to be stroked", and as bringing joy to residents.

However, in a Facebook post at noon on Thursday, Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council said in response to the petition that it never had intentions to remove or relocate the cat.

In the post, which shared a link to the petition, it said: "The Town Council would like to clarify that we have been working with Cat Welfare Society and volunteers on this feedback. We would like to reassure the public that it has never been our intention, nor have we in any way threatened to remove or relocate the cat."

In an earlier Facebook post on Wednesday afternoon, which was also in response to the issue, the town council said that it has been working with the Cat Welfare Society to manage the estate's cat population, through sterilisation.

"The sterilised cats are then released back to the community where they are looked after by a group of volunteers," it added in the post.