Woman Dies In Fall, Man Held For Attempted Suicide

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Singapore
20-9-2006

Man slashed himself with glass and threatened to jump. Quarrel heard earlier
By Khushwant Singh

A YOUNG woman lay seriously injured at the foot of Block 124 in Bedok Reservoir Road on Monday evening.

Four floors above, a young man stood at the window of a flat, slashing himself with a piece of broken glass and threatening to jump.

Neighbours called the police and rescue officers, who arrived at the scene and laid out an inflatable mat on the ground floor in case he leapt.

Other officers took up positions on the third and fifth floors, ready to rappel down and grab him in case he climbed out to the ledge.

The police, who arrived at 8pm, tried to reason with him through the locked door of his flat, even as an ambulance rushed the woman - believed by neighbours to be Vietnamese - to Changi General Hospital.

The woman, who appeared to be in her early 20s, died at 9.15pm. Police still do not know her name.

At around this time, the officers broke down the door and the man was arrested for attempting suicide.

Neighbours said the 24-year-old Indian national rented the four-room flat with a male colleague, who was not at home during the melee. Both work in a computer firm.

A 45-year-old housewife living next door said her daughter, aged nine, saw the man - whom they know as Rohit - coming home at 4pm carrying bottles of beer.

The neighbour, who wanted to be known only as Madam Su, said the woman showed up an hour later. 'She and Rohit must have known each other - he immediately invited her in.'

About two hours later, an apparent quarrel started. Madam Su said she heard shouting and bottles being broken.

A 24-year-old commerce student who lives on the ground floor said she had just returned home when she heard a loud thud.

'I was shocked to see a woman sprawled 3m from my front door. She was wearing a red blouse and dark slacks and bleeding badly,' she said.

'Some people tried to help her. They said they could smell liquor on her.'

Another student, Miss Mariah Amin, 20, watched the drama unfold from the block opposite. She said: 'The man was standing at the window, cutting himself and shouting that if he was able to do this, he was capable of killing himself. He sounded very drunk.'

Madam Su said Rohit had told her he was taking medication for anxiety attacks. 'There were times he had to sleep along the corridor because he was very drunk and his flatmate refused to let him in.'

She said she had also noticed that he would have a sexily-dressed woman visitor about once a month - a different woman each time.

Labels: Misadventure