WHEN Jemaah Islamiah detainee Mas Selamat Kastari escaped, Mr Davy Chan could not sit still.

The retired policeman, 61, decided to conduct his own search for Singapore's most wanted fugitive.

In the past one-and-a-half weeks, he has trekked through forested areas, ventured into a cemetery and wandered under flyovers on his own.

Mr Chan has spotted a few clues, such as a plastic bag containing a receipt dated 2 Mar for two bottles of mineral water and two cans of beer.

He has handed them over to the police.

The police told The New Paper that the items had nothing to do with Mas Selamat.

Mr Chan, who is a private investigator, said: 'I may be out of the (Police) Force, but the policeman in me still wants to be involved.

'The (found items) may not be worth much, but for the police to get some clues and information is better than getting nothing at all. You'll never know what it might mean to them.'

The police said on Monday that some members of the public have been handing over discarded items they found in the jungle.

Mr Chan was a police officer for 12 years, and a Police Gallantry Medal winner in 1976 after being shot and wounded in a shootout with armed gangsters.

HUNT FOR FUGITIVE

He has been following with great interest the hunt for Mas Selamat, who bolted from the Whitley Road Detention Centre on 27 Feb.

Two days later, Mr Chan decided he could not sit around any longer and headed for Sime Road, off Lornie Road, near the MacRitchie Reservoir.

He felt the fugitive would head for a forested area. And since it was near Thomson Road, where the detention centre was, he followed his hunch and headed there alone.

The three-hour search proved fruitless.

Undaunted, he has been checking out a flyover in Aljunied and other forested areas near the Botanic Gardens.

Each search lasted about three hours.

On Sunday, he went to a cemetery at the junction of Sime Road and Lornie Road.

Mr Chan, who is married, said he decided to search under flyovers as they were good hiding places - they are dark, deserted and covered with thick vegetation.

He said it would be easy to be concealed in such places. He cited the 1998 case in which a man was shot dead by mistake under a flyover on Tampines Expressway by two dog shooters from the Primary Production Department (now Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore).

The department had said then that their officers did not think a person could be amid stray dogs in the desolate area.

Both men were fined, The Straits Times reported.

Mr Chan said he preferred to search alone so he would not be slowed down by others.

'I take responsibility for my own safety. Ever since I got shot and did not die, I believe in fate. Death does not worry me at all.'

Police spokesman Danny Tan confirmed they got a call from Mr Chan on Sunday saying that some items, possibly left behind by Mas Selamat, had been found at the Sime Road cemetery.

But, he said, their investigations revealed the items were unlikely to be linked to the fugitive.

He added the police would like to thank Mr Chan for his assistance and urge the public to continue to provide information related to possible sightings of Mas Selamat.

It was frustrating, Mr Chan said, that after 14 days, Mas Selamat was still on the loose, especially with more than 1,000 policemen and soldiers looking for him.

He said Mas Selamat was no common criminal as he had undergone training and is possibly capable of setting booby traps in the jungle.

He was also prepared to die for his cause.

He agreed with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's assessment that it was complacency that resulted in the escape.

MM Lee had said Mas Selamat had won over the confidence of his guards and they paid the price for trusting him too much.

Mr Chan recalled how he made sure one particular criminal did not leave his sight.

'We had an armed robber in remand when his mother died,' he said.

'We let him pay his last respects to her at her wake. But my left hand was handcuffed to his right hand throughout.

'So when he walked around the coffin, I walked with him. When he knelt down to pray, I squatted next to him.

'And when he lifted his hands to pray for her, my left hand went up as well.'

This article was first published in The New Paper on Mar 14, 2008.