By Teh Jen Lee

ONE moment she was selling ice cream, the next she was almost hit by a dustbin hurled by some people fighting nearby.

Ice cream vendor Goh Chye Hiang, 61, was at Ang Mo Kio Central near the Ang Mo Kio Hub shopping mall on Monday evening when a fight broke out between a group of 15 to 20 youths and some clothes sellers. Two men were injured.

'I heard from passers-by that the fight was over protection money. I was lucky the dustbin didn't hit me, it landed this near to me,' said Madam Goh.

She described the incident to another ice cream vendor, Mr Lim Chiew Kin, 63, who said he was once approached by a man in his 40s for protection money.

It happened in December 2006 when he was selling ice cream in the area.

Mr Lim, who has been selling ice cream for five years, said in Mandarin: 'The man was not rude, but he wanted protection money from me, $10 for every 10 or 20 days.

'He said, 'Do you know this is my turf? I have a group of people here.' I told him if he wanted money, I would tell my supplier company.'

Free ice cream

The man then asked Mr Lim to give his gang free ice cream whenever they passed by.

Mr Lim said he could not afford to do that as he had to pay upfront for his stock of ice cream.

The man then left and Mr Lim said he had not seen him since.

Could the same man be involved in the fight on Monday?

Mr Lim, who didn't make a police report about the extortion attempt, said: 'I don't know. I didn't see the people fighting.

'The man was civil to me and since he didn't make any trouble for me, I just let the matter rest.'

Madam Goh, who lives in Ang Mo Kio, said she has heard people talking about three gangs operating there. She has seen other fights in her two years of working as an ice cream vendor.

She said the clothes sellers would set up their stall outside Ang Mo Kio Hub once or twice a week, but they had not been seen for quite some time before Monday.

She said: 'They didn't have a licence, so they moved from place to place. With the bad economy, people are trying ways and means to earn a living.'

On Monday, when the fight broke out, she quickly put the knife she uses to cut ice cream blocks in one of the inner compartments of her cart.

She said: 'I did that before I ran off because it would be terrible if someone used it to hurt people.'

It was a good thing she hid the knife because a stall assistant from a nearby coffee shop told Shin Min Daily News that the youths ran inside to grab forks to use as weapons.

The witness said the two injured men were setting up their temporary stall to sell clothes when they were approached by the group of youths.

A heated argument ensued, followed by the fight, which lasted more than five minutes.

A bedsheet seller who gave her name as Mrs Wong, 50, said: 'I'm not sure who started the fight. There was loud shouting and taunting.

'Of course, I was scared. The youths looked very fierce.'

Metal rods, wooden sticks and even umbrellas were used in the fight.

Madam Goh said there was a bit of blood on the rods that were taken away by police as evidence.

The police said they received a call about a group of youths creating trouble near Ang Mo Kio Hub at 6.50pm on Monday.

Two men, aged 28 and 55, were taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital in an ambulance.

The police are investigating.

This article was first published in The New Paper on 15 Oct 2008.