Fifty years ago, on Jan 31, 1974, four men, armed with submachine guns and explosives, infiltrated the Shell oil refinery on Pulau Bukom, off the southern shore of Singapore. They tried to blow up three oil tanks but succeeded in setting ablaze only one of them before the alarms were raised. To escape, they hijacked a ferry, steering for the high seas.

When Singapore’s security forces cut off their escape route, the encircled attackers, holding the five-man ferry crew hostage at gunpoint, threatened to blow up the remaining explosives. A stand-off for eight tense days ensued, dubbed the Laju incident after the name of the ferry.