Search the Community

Clementi wet market drama: Woman accuses man of molest Angry wife wields chopper after woman accuses her fishmonger husband in public. -TNP Fri, Feb 26, 2010 The New Paper Photos: Shin Min Daily News By Benson Ang IT BEGAN with accusations of molest, turned into a shouting match and then turned violent. Somewhere between all these, prawns were hurled and hair was yanked. Which may not be all that surprising since the antagonists were female and one of them is a fishmonger. The catfight - or should we call it a fish-fight - took place at a Clementi wet market around noon yesterday. One woman grabbed a club used to kill fish and faced off her alleged molester's wife, who was armed with a chopper. A crowd of stallholders and customers gathered as the women grappled with each other, grabbing each other's hair and pushing each other with one hand while holding on to their weapons with the other. Some onlookers even stood on the serving area of the stalls to get a better view. A Shin Min Daily News reporter, Ms Tan Ying Zhi, who saw the fight, said: "The people around them were shocked. Some shouted, 'No, no, quickly call the police!' But nobody dared to go up and grab hold of the chopper." Then the alleged molester entered the fray and grabbed the chopper from his wife. By this time, blood was smeared on the arms and clothes of the two women. Thankfully, it was only fish blood. The only human blood spilt was that of the husband, whose right hand was cut when he retrieved the chopper from his wife. The rear of the stalls face each other and they share a common space less than 2m wide when they are doing business. We are not identifying the parties because one of them claims to be a victim of molest. Challenged her to a fight The alleged victim told The New Paper yesterday that she had confronted the man after the alleged molest.She claimed that he apologised to her. But matters came to a head yesterday when Ms Tan showed up yesterday to interview her. During the interview, the woman said at the top of her voice that the male fishmonger was a "molester". Witnesses said the man did not react, but his wife told the accuser to keep quiet. When she refused, the wife challenged her to a fight outside the stall. The accuser refused to come out of the stall and retorted: "What right do you have to challenge me?" She then threw some prawns at the wife, who became angrier and forced her way into the stall. Seeing this, the accuser picked up a dark blue club which she uses to kill fish. The wife grabbed the accuser's chopper, which was lying on the stall's serving area and held it over her head. The scuffle broke out, and even when the man grabbed the chopper from his wife, it did not end. The wife pulled the accuser out of the stall. The accuser fell and the two went at each other again after she picked herself up. They were finally separated when a middle-aged woman pushed in between them to keep them apart. As a man pulled the wife away to a corner, she shouted at the accuser: "Do you think you are so great?" Both the accuser and the wife then called the police. The police confirmed that they received a call at 11am informing them of a dispute. A 56-year-old male suspect had been arrested and investigations were continuing. "I let it pass because I thought it was unintentional, and because the space is so small," she said in Mandarin. "But on Sunday, when I bent over to open the freezer, I deliberately moved my buttocks away from him. Yet, I could still feel a hand touching my buttocks. "He pretended that he didn't know what he was doing, but it was no mistake," she alleged. "I told him that even if he 'gained' a little, he should not try to 'gain' even more." When asked why she accused the man loudly in front of other people, she said: "I'm not going to hide what he did. I couldn't stand it any more." She said she and the man were on friendly terms before she confronted him about the alleged molest. Things turned sour after that, she said. She acknowledged that the man's wife did not hit her during the scuffle. Her claims could not be verified because the man and his wife could not be contacted yesterday. 'Fierce' When the accuser began operating her stall there six years ago, the man was already there. When approached by The New Paper, three stallholders described the accuser as "difficult" and "fierce". They said they also find it odd that her stall is sometimes open until 9pm. Most of the stalls close by the afternoon. One claimed that the accuser had told him she had previously worked in Ang Mo Kio, but moved after a shop owner there molested her. Another claimed that she was jealous of the man because his stall has more customers. A meat-seller said: "The stalls here are so narrow, it's inevitable that people bump into one another." Responding to their claims, the accuser said: "The man's stall is his business. Why should I care?" She said she stayed back late sometimes to remove the heads of prawns for sale the next morning. "I am the victim," she said. "Why are people attacking me?" [email protected] This article was first published in The New Paper.