By Ho Lian-Yi

The young female jogger had no idea that she was being followed.

After all, it was just a morning run in a park near Yishun Ave 6, an area that residents say is reasonably safe.

But her light workout turned into a flight for her life when the 23-year-old health-care worker was brutally attacked by an unknown assailant at around 11am yesterday.

In her bid to escape, she left a 100m-long trail of blood from the park to the stretch of Yishun Ave 6 opposite ITE Yishun.

One witness, Mr Peter Thevarajoo, 31, a cleaner, said he was cycling home when he saw the jogger, whom he described as long-haired and pretty, at Yishun Ring Road.

It is linked to Yishun Ave 6 by a park connector.

"She didn't know there was someone behind her," said the Yishun resident.

He described the man running behind her as a thin man wearing a blue T-shirt and track pants.

But he didn't see him carrying any weapons.

Mr Thevarajoo continued cycling, but felt that something was wrong. So he made a turn and cycled back to where he last spotted the pair.

But when he reached the spot, minutes later, it was too late.

The woman he had seen earlier was dashing out of the park, bleeding from the head.

Another resident, Mr Khairul Abdullah, 33, self-employed, was headed home in his motorcycle when he saw the victim.

He said she was wearing a white T-shirt and shorts, sitting by the roadside, covered in blood. "It was really brutal. She was attacked in the face I think... really brutally, blood all over and a really deep cut in her cheek," he said.

But despite her injuries, he said, she wasn't crying, but was telling the policeman next to her that she had been attacked while jogging.

When The New Paper arrived on the scene at around 12.30pm, what we saw was a scene straight out of TV series CSI.

The blood trail was dotted with a long line of white police markers which terminated at a dark pool of blood that had soaked into the pavement.

A row of patrol cars were parked next to a police barrier which sealed off the route of the woman's escape.

There was another barrier along the grassy area near the nearby workers dormitory in Yishun Ave 6.

The barriers were on both sides of the road.

The New Paper saw policemen in red berets and vests walking up the staircases to the workers' quarters, while red armoured vans with the words Special Operations Command emblazoned on them were parked outside.

Policemen with dogs could also be seen in the forested area behind the dorm.

Mr Thevarajoo claimed that he had seen robberies and fights in the area. He also claimed that he had seen foreign workers hassling girls.

In January last year, The New Paper reported how prostitutes had been seen openly soliciting in the jungle behind the dorm while workers loitered nearby.

Using cabs, these women, also foreign nationals, and their pimps, had gone right to the doorsteps of their would-be clients.