Police and 7th Feb

Yesterday was an eventful day...mostly involving the law!! We woke up to the sound of arguments... Our neighbour was shouting at his maid and refusing to accept her apologies. There was a man squatting near the lift with two security guards asking questions. Later the police were bought in. We came to know that the maid had got her boy friend into the house at around 12.30 in the night and was with him until the granny in the house went to the room in the morning looking for a blanket. Since this was not the first time, the owners decided to take severe action and called in the police.

It is really shocking to see something of this type happening in a condominium as there are adequate security guards always on rounds. Also don't know what the maid was thinking when she brought in her friend when the whole household (a granny, three children and their parents!!!) were there. This seems to be the limit.

When we were musing about this during dinner, we got a call from one of our friends. He wanted help as his wife's sister had been arrested. It was a shock. She had been arrested along with her 3 year old kid for shop lifting.

The story is this. This lady had come to Singapore on transit from US on the way to India. She was visiting her sister. She, her sister and their kids had all been to a nearby shopping mall to get a few things for friends in India. They were all busy shopping for nearly 2 hours and had got different items at different floors and had paid the bill as and when they saw a counter. Finally when they left, they had a whole cart of things and this one item got missed and was in the shopping cart. None of them noticed it when they left. It was a small piece of cloth and lost among the items. After they had left, one of the shop's assistant ran to them claiming they had not paid for all the items. So they had to empty all the contents and check it against the bill and finally they noted the unpaid item. They apologized to the sales assistant and offered to pay. But it was not accepted and the lady along with her kid was shut in a room. Later she was handed to the police. No explanation was accepted.

The police were sympathetic towards this person, but couldn't do much as they had received a complaint and had to follow the procedures. Finally the lady and the kid were released around 3.30 in the night after two people had signed and vouched for them.

Two incidents...both involving the police...but what a difference! But both served as an eye opener. I really feel sorry about the second incident. Was the sales assistant so naive that she couldn't identify a genuine error when she sees one? Why was there no manager who intervened? Why was it that there were no one ready to listen to this women's explanation? This item that was forgotten was not even worth two pence of the total items that the lady had bought. So wouldn't a sane person atleast stop to think, why this had happened and if the person had really hidden the item with the purpose of shop lifting. Overall it was so sad.

Update on the above:

The police have cleared the lady of any offence and have released her. They accepted her explanation.