Singapore: Singapore today said it will not stop the hiring of foreign workers from South Asia - most of whom come from India and Bangladesh - following the city-state's worst outbreak of violence in over 40 years.
Giving this assurance, Singapore's Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin allayed the concerns raised by several workers during dialogue and outreach sessions in the aftermath of the Little India riot on December 8.
Tan told media here that many of the workers have denounced what happened in Little India, a precinct of Indian-origin businesses, eateries and pubs where most of the South Asian workers take their Sunday break, triggered by an Indian national's death in a bus accident.
“Certainly the riot is very serious, something that shouldn't be taken lightly but I don't believe that we should generalise and therefore label all South Asian foreign workers as being of the same ilk.
“It doesn't represent that at all,” Channel News Asia quoted Tan as saying.
