A Singaporean has been on the run in Indonesia for the last six weeks after breaking out from an immigration detention centre in Batam.

The man, identified by the Indonesian authorities as Damar Bahadur Chettri, was first arrested on the island in the Riau archipelago on Dec 22.

He was caught trying to leave for Singapore by ferry using a fraudulent Indonesian passport, issued by the local authorities.

The passport carried his photo but was issued in the name of another person, said Mr Oky Derajat R. Mubarok, from the Batam immigration office, on Saturday.

Damar, who also goes by the name Sam Chettri, somehow managed to obtain the passport using fake Indonesian identification papers, said sources familiar with the case.

Mr Oky, who heads the immigration department’s internal affairs division, said Damar, who was in custody for more than a month in Batam, escaped after breaking open the cell door at the detention centre on Jan 24. “We are still investigating,” he said, when responding to queries on why Damar was using a fraudulent travel document.

The Indonesian police have since been called in to help track down the 55-year-old Singaporean. The Straits Times understands that, based on a name search, Damar is not on a wanted list in Singapore.

News of his escape was leaked to the local media at the weekend, with the fugitive’s whereabouts still unknown.

The ease with which Damar managed to procure a fraudulent passport and break out from a detention centre has cast a spotlight on local immigration authorities.

There have been concerns in recent years over how such passports could be acquired to allow criminals, corrupt officials and terrorists to leave the country without being detected. It appears that those in need of such passports can get hold of one, if they are prepared to pay high prices.

Local travel agents and brokers told The Straits Times that illegal passports can easily be bought in Batam and South Sumatra’s Lampung province for about 15 million rupiah (S$1,585) each.

However, the world’s most notorious place to procure fake travel documents is Thailand. Its key clientele are terrorists, human traffickers and other criminals.

In 2010, Thai authorities busted a racket involving two Pakistanis and a Thai woman that provided fake passports to extremist groups. On Feb 8, five Pakistanis were arrested in Bangkok for assisting a forgery ring ship counterfeit passports overseas for $3,200.

One of the most high-profile fugitives who travelled using a fraudulent Indonesian passport was Singaporean terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari, who was on the run after planning an attack on Changi Airport.

When he was arrested in 2003, he had in his possession, a genuine Indonesian passport, issued in Surabaya, but with a false identity.

tkchan@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 7, 2016.
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At the age of 67, single mother Jainah Awang still has to take care of her grown-up son, who is mentally challenged.

The housewife lives with her son in a one-room rental flat in Marsiling, surviving on government aid.

But these personal challenges did not deter the feisty woman from holding her own “Meet the People” sessions.

Three years ago, she took down a small wooden table to the void deck at Block 4, Marsiling Road. Since then, she has been sitting there from 10am to 2pm every day without fail.

“Neighbours know I am here every day and they come to talk to me about their problems and I will see if I can help,” said Madam Jainah, whose husband died from a heart attack 18 years ago. She has raised three other children who are married and no longer live with her.

When neighbours tell her they do not have food, she heads upstairs to cook meals for them to take home. And when they need someone to take them for medical check-ups or to visit a friend, she goes with them.

For her efforts, she was honoured with the Most Outstanding Woman award, given out yesterday by the Marsiling community ahead of International Women’s Day.

The award recognises ordinary women who excel in various areas of their lives. Four women, including Madam Jainah, received the award from the MP for the area, Madam Halimah Yacob.

These women have overcome life obstacles and are positive role models in their families and the community, said a spokesman for Marsiling Women’s Group. “The awardees will share their life stories with the intent to inspire the women in Marsiling,” she added.

International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8 every year. In Singapore, various groups have planned initiatives to mark the day.

Facebook is launching an initiative here tomorrow to empower women entrepreneurs through a series of training and networking events.

“We all know Singapore is a great place to do business, but when it comes to starting your own business, women still face challenges such as the lack of access to networks, resources and training, and social bias,” said Ms Clair Deevy, who is heading the initiative at Facebook.

The Association of Women for Action and Research will launch a movement to support single parents on Thursday.

It includes an online campaign and a family carnival catered to single parents on Saturday.

Despite being a single mother, Madam Jainah said she still makes time for the community because she knows what it feels like to have no family and to be poor.

“My parents died when I was young and later my husband left me, so my neighbours are my family,” she said. “So this Chinese or Malay mama and papa who live alone and don’t have family with them are my mama and papa.”

Every Friday, she and four other volunteers cook dinner at the void deck for 250 needy residents in the area. The ingredients are donated by Sheng Siong supermarket.

“When they cry, I cry. When they are happy, I am happy. That is why I choose to do all these.”

This article was first published on March 7, 2016.
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Singapore’s first woman minister with her own portfolio is confident that more of her female colleagues will join her in the Cabinet in the near future.

Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, 51, said she sees “quite a few good candidates”, in an interview ahead of International Women’s Day tomorrow.

“I see quite a few good candidates. They are young, they are good, they are talented, they are effective – I don’t see why they cannot be ministers.”

But she would not be drawn to identify them or even say whether they are in the current crop of senior ministers of state.

“I wouldn’t want to speculate, but you can see that there are quite a few of them,” she said.

The women officeholders include three senior ministers of state who are seen as members of the fourth- generation leadership team: Ms Indranee Rajah, Mrs Josephine Teo and Ms Sim Ann.

Each holds two portfolios. Ms Indranee’s are Law and Finance; Mrs Teo, Foreign Affairs and Transport; and Ms Sim, Community, Culture and Youth as well as Finance.

In her first interview with local newspapers since she took office six months ago, Ms Fu also dwelt on plans for the sports and arts sectors.

Her No. 1 priority, however, is to deepen Singaporeans’ national pride and nurture a caring society.

Ironically, pride in her political achievement, as Singapore’s first woman minister with her own portfolio, hardly entered her consciousness initially.

With a wry smile, she said she did not see what the fuss was all about at first. But when strangers told her she was an inspiration to their daughters, she realised that she was part of a line of women in politics who pushed the envelope.

Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, she pointed out, was Singapore’s first woman full minister when she was promoted in 2009 to be Second Minister for Finance and Transport. Mrs Lim, however, left politics after she was defeated in Aljunied GRC in the 2011 General Election.

“What I am doing is really pushing the boundary a little. Mrs Lim was the first Cabinet minister, I pushed that to be the first minister to helm a ministry,” Ms Fu said.

“Madam Halimah Yacob is the first Speaker of Parliament. And now, I am the first woman Leader of the House. We are just pushing that boundary for women… I am glad to be part of that movement to push the boundary for women.” Ms Fu, who was appointed Leader of the House last September, is responsible for arranging government business and Parliament’s legislative programme.

But will Singapore have a woman prime minister one day? She said without hesitation: “Why not?”

But she does not seem to see it happening soon, and declines to speculate on when it may happen.

“It should be something that is natural. It cannot be orchestrated,” she said.

She was also circumspect about criticism from some quarters on the slow progress of women in politics in Singapore.

“It is not affirmative action. We don’t believe in the quota system,” she said.

But she believes that women face obstacles in reaching their full potential. These include expectations of a woman’s role at home, being overlooked for promotions at work and being penalised for taking time off work to look after young children.

Ms Fu, a mother of three sons who turn 24, 22 and 19 this year, attributed her own success to the support of her husband and parents.

Her bosses gave her big breaks, too, said the former chief executive of PSA International (South-east Asia and Japan) at PSA Corp, which manages Singapore’s ports.

But in the push for progress, people need to bear in mind, she said, that gender equality does not mean equal numbers at the workplace or in Parliament.

Like other countries, women in Singapore will dominate some sectors, such as childcare and nursing, while men do so in sectors like the uniformed forces, she said.

But when it comes to politics, she wants the gap narrowed: “We hope to see more women. But it has to take time. We cannot rush this.”

This article was first published on March 7, 2016.
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A 71-YEAR-OLD Shanghainese man, believed to be suffering from dementia, has been found by good Samaritans after being lost here for six days.

Zhou Decheng had flown here from Shanghai, China, to visit daughter Zhou Zhifen, a 46-year-old housewife.

He became uncontactable in the Clementi area at about 7am on Feb 27, Chinese newspaper Shin Min Daily News reported yesterday.

Ms Zhou tried several ways to find her father: contacting the newspapers, calling the police and using social media platforms such as microblogging site Sina Weibo.

After she posted on social media asking for help to find her dad, she received more than a hundred phone calls offering suggestions and help.

She said she was heartened by the help she received, with some driving her to look for her father and others providing bread and water to the groups tasked with finding Mr Zhou.

She told Shin Min that she received a call at about 11am on Thursday saying that her father had been found at a bus stop at Penjuru Road.

“I asked to speak to him and recognised his voice once I heard it so I rushed down. I was so moved to see him that I almost cried,” she said.

Her dad told her that he had been looked after by kind strangers in the six days that he had been lost.

Ms Zhou estimates that her father ate at least one meal a day.

She said people treated him to meals when he wandered into hawker centres and said he was hungry.

He slept on a bench at a stadium and would walk around if he felt cold.

Ms Zhou said her father had lost 7kg in the ordeal and now has trouble falling asleep.

Speaking with tears in his eyes, he told Shin Min on Saturday: “I saw my daughter and only then did I realise that I’d been outside for more than five days.”

myp@sph.com.sg

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