Circuit breaker: S'pore resident receives warning letter from police for visiting mother

A Twitter user claiming to be the resident's brother alleged he was found because of 'random checks' the police were doing.

Mandy How | April 13, 2020, 02:35 PM

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Update on Apr. 15, 10:54pm: This article has been edited to include additional context on the circumstance under which the warning letter was issued. 

Update on Apr. 14, 7:50pm: The police have responded on the incident:

Circuit breaker measures are in place in Singapore, and the authorities are serious about it.

On Apr. 12, the Ministry of Manpower announced that a work pass holder has been permanently banned from working in Singapore after he was caught loitering for an extended period of time.

In a similar vein, a local resident has received a warning letter from the police for visiting his mother in Jurong West.

The letter, currently circulating online, indicates that the incident took place on Apr. 11.

It cited the contravention of "prohibition on social gatherings" as the offence.

In response to receiving the warning, the resident retorted: "Different IC in address consider breaching lol. Okeh."

On the night of Apr. 12, one Twitter user, who claimed to be the brother of the resident, elaborated on the incident.

The user claimed in his tweets that the warning letter was issued after "random checks" by the police.

According to the Singapore Statutes, however, the police only have the power to enter a residence without a warrant in a few scenarios, as empowered under various laws.

Some of the more common ones include:

  • The police officer reasonably suspects that a person is about to or has attempted to commit suicide.
  • There is reasonable cause for a police officer for suspecting that any stolen property is concealed or lodged in any place, and he has good grounds for believing that by reason of the delay in obtaining a search warrant such property is likely to be removed.
  • A police officer investigating an arrestable offence may search the place for a document or other thing in any place with these conditions.
https://twitter.com/__Fitch__/status/1249354781874782209

In case you can't see:

Mothership has reached out to the police and will update this article when they reply.

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Top image by kevin tran on Unsplash, social media

 

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