With greater awareness of the risks posed by terrorists, Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam is urging more people to come forward to be trained on how to deal with terror attacks.

Singaporeans, he said, could volunteer to be trained in what to do if they find themselves in such situations, how they can help others, and how to inform security agencies under such circumstances, for example.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday (Aug 06), a day after Indonesian authorities arrested six men who allegedly wanted to fire rockets at Marina Bay from Batam, Mr Shanmugam said Singaporeans need to understand that people who want to harm Singapore are “pretty serious” and will seek different ways of doing it.

At the minimum, Mr Shanmugam said the authorities want drive home the message of SGSecure, the national movement aimed at mobilising the entire community into being more security conscious and involved.

The next level would be for people to come forward to be trained, and beyond that, he hopes people will come forward to be “community mobilisers” and rally others together to deal with the situation and in the days after.

Citing a successful exercise held in Toa Payoh West today, Mr Shanmugam said close to 1,500 people have been trained and this shows that the message has been getting through.

The authorities have also revamped Emergency Preparedness Day activities, which will be rolled out in a series of pilot programmes in different constituencies.

EP Day has been held annually in all constituencies since 2003, traditionally featuring a range of threats including home fires, water scarcity and dengue. The revamped EP Day will have a more hands-on focus, such as residents learning skills such as first-aid, and participating in drills to familiarise themselves on what to do in the event of an attack.

Such activities will be further ramped up next year, Mr Shanmugam said.

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by Siau Ming En

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