The Crime Story - Pickpockets And Me

It was way back when Singapore Bus Service and Singapore-Johore Express buses ended the Johore Bahru journey at the now Kotaraya Terminal - Late 80's or early 90's I supposed.

I was queuing to board the Singapore-Johore Express bus at the terminal when I felt something heavy was pulling away my sling-bag.
Without turning around, I pulled out a man's hand with an apple in it. He looked away as I got hold of his hand - As if nothing had ever happened.
He just walked away...

******

While queuing to get my passport endorsed, a teenager squeezed into the congested line and took 'something' from the pocket of a haversack carried by a European tourist in-front of me - In those days, it's just a matter of up a few staircase to the immigration counter for passport clearance from JB to Singapore.

I hold tight the boy's hand and pulled him to inform the immigration officer-in-charge that the European tourist whom the passport he just endorsed had just become the victim of pickpocket - The immigration officer-in-charge just gave me his deaf ear.


I pulled the boy down the few steps to a bus ticket inspector on duty relating to him the incident - He told me there's nothing could be done by him as he's in another country - The countrymen will not appreciate if we become 'very petty' over trivial matters.
"It's o.k," he said, and let go of the boy with the 'something' he's still clenching hard in his fist.

There were people everywhere and they did nothing nor did they ask anything - I was shocked with the couldn't care attitude.

But thinking back, I wondered where did I get the energy to pull the boy here and there with no resistance from him - He followed me obediently.

******

Just a couple of years ago while on the way to Larkin at the JB checkpoint, an elderly man was seen pulling something from yet another pocket of a Singaporean lady backpacker's haversack.
I confronted him and he quickly threw the stolen item down under the waiting bus - Being an old man, he claimed, he wouldn't do such a thing.

Challenging his words, I said there's the stolen item under the bus.
He just walked away as fast as he could.

I am still wondering if the authority concerned took honest measure in curbing the crime rate especially when it happened in the city's front-line.

Or it's just another 'familiar' remark heard on tv and seen in prints - The Little Red Dot likes to make a mountain out of a mould.