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As it closed around 10.20pm on Saturday, The Tipsy Cow owner, Mr. Raj Rai, heard a commotion in his outdoor area and saw two groups in total over 10 people fighting each other.
Mr. Rai, 47, and a staff member stepped in to end the fight and push the rioters out onto the public walkway outside The Central @ Clarke Quay.
But the fight resumed on a walkway leading to an underpass and ended with a man and woman taken to hospital for minor stab wounds, The New Paper understands.
Yesterday, the police said they had arrested five men between the ages of 21 and 40 for rioting with a deadly weapon on Eu Tong Sen Street.
TNP understands that the weapon was a knife.
DISPUTE
Preliminary investigations found that two groups had fought after a dispute at a nearby restaurant.
Police were alerted around 10:40 pm, but the rioters had fled when they reached the scene.
Bystanders tended to the wounds of a 27-year-old woman and her 36-year-old partner, who were later transported consciously to Singapore General Hospital (SGH).
A 40-year-old man suspected of being involved in the fight was found wounded and hiding in a dark corner of an alley on nearby Carpenter Street. He was arrested and taken to SGH.
Agents from the Central Police Division and the Criminal Investigation Department were able to identify some of the alleged assailants from closed-circuit television images.
Four men, between 21 and 34 years old, were arrested in 16 hours. A manhunt is underway for the other suspects. It is not clear how many are still at large.
Furthermore, a 29-year-old man was arrested at the scene for disorderly conduct.
In a video circulating online, several people can be seen walking onto the catwalk, screaming and pushing each other.
The video, which has had more than 230,000 views, then shows paramedics treating a man. Blood can be seen on the wall and floor of the walkway.
Another video shows the man screaming in pain as a paramedic tries to stop the bleeding in his back.
In a third video, a woman is seen lying on the catwalk in blood.
Rai said the injured couple were patrons of his bar and bistro before closing time at 10.30 p.m.
Two men are believed to have rushed in from outside and began throwing chairs and tables into the outdoor area. It is believed that they had friends at the bar and were later involved in the fight.
Rai told TNP that in his 20+ years in food and beverage (F&B), he has never seen a fight like this before.
“When I came out and saw the commotion, my first instinct was to stop it …
“My son and daughter asked me if I was afraid to get in the middle of this. I said I wasn’t worried. My first instinct was to protect my business,” he said.
This is the second case of riots in a week. Last Monday, five men and three women between the ages of 22 and 27 were arrested after a group of eight people were allegedly attacked at a club on nearby Boat Quay.
Said Mr. Rai: “I’m in awe that in this age, such things keep happening. How can they be so blatant? Worse yet, this is during Covid-19. We are supposed to take care of ourselves.”
Warning that they will not tolerate blatant acts of violence, the police said: “We will spare no effort to arrest these criminals and treat them according to the law.”
Those convicted of rioting with a deadly weapon can be imprisoned for up to 10 years and flogged.
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