to a chase after the Singapore authorities were aware of the hijacking and raised the alarm and the ferry-boat was quickly surrounded by gunboats from the Singapore Navy and patrol-boats from the Marine Police at the Eastern Anchorage, just outside Marina Bay. This was followed by 7 days of intense negotiations between the Singapore government and the terrorists and during this same period of time, two of the hostages managed to escape from their captors by jumping overboard in the middle of the night and were swiftly rescued. The terrorists later agreed to release the remaining crew members in exchange for a group of so-called "guarantors" for their safe passage to the Middle East. This group of 13 consisted of four commandos from the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and eight other local government officials and was led by S. R. Nathan, the then-Director of the Security and Intelligence Division (SID) at the Ministry of Defence. Crisis resolution and consequences On the night of 7 February, the group was transferred from Laju to the Marine Police Headquarters and then to Paya Lebar Airport, where the terrorists surrendered their weapons and freed the remaining hostages. After they had done so, the four terrorists left Singapore on 8 February at 0125 hours, accompanied by S. R. Nathan's team on a specially arranged Japan Airlines flight to Kuwait. After reaching Kuwait, the 13-men party flew back and reached Singapore on the following day. The hijackers were later accepted and flown to South Yemen. All members of the negotiating team received honours on National Day, 9 August 1974. The incident was Singapore's first encounter with international terrorism. It also directly contributed to the beginning of the establishment of full-time National Service for the country's police force in 1975, one year after the incident, referred to as Police National Service (PNS), which was aimed at, initially, raising a sizeable source of manpower for the police in the event of another terrorist incident on vital installations and the provision of protection and security for the latter against the former. References External links Days Of Rage - S1: Laju Hijack, episode about this event from a documentary series by Channel News Asia Acts of piracy Communist terrorist incidents in Asia Hijacking Hostage taking January 1974 events in Asia Japan–Norway relations Japan–Singapore relations 1973 crimes in Norway 1974 crimes in Singapore Terrorism in Japan Terrorist attacks attributed to Palestinian