Women Honoured With Awards For The Way They Caught A Masturbating Man
"The more we saw him run, the more we wanted to catch him."
On 7 June, five women received the Singapore Police Force's Public Spiritedness Award for their efforts in catching a man "insulting the modesty of a woman" in public
Mothership reported that 24-year-old Ng Rui Ashlynna, 23-year-old Hemaa Shruthi Sekar, and 23-year-old Cheong Pei Lin received their awards at the event.
The other two women, Anthea Julia Chua and Koh Huishan Deborah, will be given the award separately as they did not attend the ceremony.
At 11pm on 22 March, the five friends were walking towards the Tiong Bahru MRT station when a middle-aged woman approached them and said that a man was following her
She said that he masturbated in her presence and then trailed after her.
With the man still following from behind, the women quickly devised a plan to catch him.
The group went up to the man and pretended to ask him for directions.
Meanwhile, Ashlynna called the police.
After he obliged, the women cornered him in a multi-storey car park. They kept him there until the police arrived.
"What do you want from me?" the suspect said repeatedly as he grew visibly distressed.
The man was subsequently arrested for public nuisance, Channel NewsAsia reported.
On whether the ordeal was frightening, Hemaa said that she was not afraid "because I had friends with me"
"The other thing was that we really wanted justice for the lady in question," Hemaa said.
"The more we saw him run, the more we wanted to catch him," she added.
At the Singapore Police Force's ceremony, Assistant Commissioner of Police Gregory Tan praised the six women for acting "very decisively".
"This is an example that even in moments where you don't think something will happen, you come across someone who is doing an obscene act and we are very thankful that they took that decision to step forward," he added.