Ashwin Tan Boon Leng grew up in an unusual family environment.

In his home kitchen, young Ashwin noticed parangs and axes alongside the kitchen utensils and cutlery.

Many of his uncles were bookies and Ah Longs (loansharks) who had no qualms having girlfriends despite being married.

So when Ashwin followed his secondary school friends to join the infamous gang, Salakau (369 in Hokkien), he was not surprised to find his seaman father in the same gang.

It turned out that his father was active in the area where his family lived. Ashwin’s gang operated in the Tanjong Rhu territory. 

Young Ashwin (left) with his gang member father and sister.

“When my father learnt about me joining the gang, he simply told me to make sure I open my eyes when I mix around with people. I took it as a green light to go ahead,” said Ashwin, now 44.

After he completed his National Service, Ashwin joined the gang members who were under his father’s territory and leadership. In this way, father and son began to have many mutual gang friends. Theirs was an unusual father-son relationship.

“We were like friends and fellow brothers. We went to party in the discos and clubs together and even went to Batam and got involved with women together. I aspired to become an up-and-coming gangster in the gang,” Ashwin told Salt&Light.

Dalliance with drugs 

Although his father had no issues with Ashwin joining the gang, he disapproved when Ashwin – due to peer influence – began sniffing glue and then taking drugs.

“Gang members pride themselves on being tough and, to them, taking drugs was a ‘nonsense’ thing,” recalled Ashwin. “My dad whacked me for it but by then, I was out of control and had lost respect for him.” 

Ashwin was caught for taking drugs in 2002. At 21 years old, he was sentenced to one year imprisonment.

“I did not take it seriously. It was like a holiday camp to me. I thought it would help me grow in rank to become a bigger gangster after my prison term,” he said.

During his time in prison, Ashwin opted to go for chapel service. He was not looking for God but simply wanted to escape the claustrophobia of his lock-up cell.

In the service, he heard the familiar tune of the hymn, “As the deer panteth for the water”, a song he had heard before while studying at Geylang Methodist school.

Ashwin (left) at 21, the age he was caught and imprisoned for taking drugs.

“I felt something turn in my heart. God was seeking me, even before I knew Him,” said Ashwin.

That seed of faith that was planted in his heart landed on thorny ground at the time.

Upon his release from jail, he went straight back to his old life.

Ashwin (in black), 22, clubbing with a group of friends.

Before the year was up, he was caught for drug trafficking. This time, he was given a six-year-and-four-month sentence and five strokes of the cane.

“This time, as a 24-year-old adult, I was really scared. I didn’t know how I could go through the long sentence, what I could do to change and what would happen to my family,” he said.

He noticed that a number of his friends who went to church after their release from prison actually became better people.

“I thought of going to church like medication. Take it once a week and I am saved for the next six days,” said Ashwin.

So, upon his release, he started going to church with a neighbour on Sundays and sometimes attended cell group on Fridays. The rest of the days, however, were spent on his old practices of drinking and womanising.

He stayed clean from drugs for about two years but eventually succumbed to it again.

Back in prison for the third time

In 2011, he was thrown in prison for the third time. This time, his sentence was seven years and nine months, and three strokes of the cane.

“I not only blamed God but the whole world for what happened to me. I felt drug addiction was a sickness and that I should be treated and helped instead of being thrown in jail to rot,” he said.

He gave up all hope of being able to get free from the bondage of drugs.

“If I can change, most likely I would have been able to change the first time. Or even the second time. But here I was labelled as an ‘LT’ (Long Term) prisoner or hardcore addict,” Ashwin told Salt&Light.

Knowing that he was unable to help himself, he began praying to God and reading his Bible every morning in his cell.

“It was a rather general prayer and I did so half believing and half not believing,” he said honestly. “I needed inner peace.”

About halfway into his sentence, his grandfather passed away in July of 2014. His sister came to visit him in prison and asked if he wanted to attend his grandfather’s wake as he could apply for compassionate leave.

Ashwin wavered. He knew he had already caused enough trouble to his family; they were not really on talking terms.

“Whenever I talked to my father, we would start quarrelling. I couldn’t understand my mother, as I was not with her most of the time. I had zero communication with my sister as we did not have any common topics to talk about,” said Ashwin.

Above all, he feared receiving sarcastic remarks from his relatives and imagined that they would mock his paying respects to his grandfather as hypocrisy.

But not wanting to live with any more regrets, he chose to go to the wake.

Divine revelation in a police van

As per prison protocol, any inmate leaving the prison temporarily would be handcuffed and have his legs shackled. He was also escorted to a police van and chained to its interior.

When the door of the van was slammed shut, Ashwin found himself in pitch darkness. The police van was designed that way so that prisoners within could not see outside and curious onlookers could not peer within.

As the van swiftly made its way along the roads, Ashwin began having flashbacks from his life.

“God began to reveal to me the truth about how I was living my life,” he said soberly. “I thought I was responsible, but my actions did not show it. I did not provide for my family.

“I pledged brotherhood to others and prided myself on being loyal but I could not even be there for my family.

“When my mother needed to go for surgery, I did not take her to the hospital. I said I loved my grandfather, but I did not do anything for him and I was just going to pay my respects at his death,” said Ashwin.

When he arrived at the wake, his relatives did not sneer at him. They simply hugged him.

“Shedding tears” in his heart

As Ashwin knelt before his grandfather’s coffin, hands and legs still shackled, there was pain in his heart. There were no more chances for him to mend their relationship.

“But my heart was so hardened that even when I wanted to cry, I could not cry,” he said. “The tears came in my heart but not in my eyes.” 

In the van on the way back to prison, he continued to have flashback after flashback of his life.

A few months later, his grandmother also died. Again, he applied for leave to attend her funeral wake.

Again, surrounded by darkness in the van, Ashwin was shown how his actions did not measure up to who he had thought he was.

Kneeling before his grandmother’s coffin, he still could not cry. 

But a deep change had come over him in the darkness of the van to and from his grandparents’ wakes.

“God showed me what was wrong with my life. I was like the Samaritan woman at the well, and God revealed to me that He knew everything about my life.

Ashwin’s grandparents, whose wakes he attended while handcuffed.

“It definitely did not come from me, because I did not have that kind of awareness of God even though I had had plenty of time in the prison cell to reflect.

Upon his return, he was placed in a single cell instead of his previous four-man cell. 

The officers felt that he was emotional and wanted him to cool down a little before resuming his normal activities.

In the small cell, Ashwin knelt down. He felt a hymn rising in his heart. It was the tune of the song, “When I Look Into Your Holiness”, that he had heard in the prison chapel service.

As the lyrics and melody washed over him, tears finally streamed down his face as he was touched by the presence of God.

Ashwin uttered an earnest prayer: “God, I don’t know how to change. I don’t know what to do with my life. If You can, help me. Teach me. Save me.”

How would God respond to the plea of this hardcore gangster and drug addict? Click here for the continuation of Ashwin’s miraculous story.

“At the age of 44, I send a love emoji to my mother every day”: Ex-369 gangster who met God in a police van

RELATED STORIES: 

Nothing but “constant grace”: Gangster encounters God in prison, marries his counsellor and becomes a pastor

What this gangster-turned-pastor saw in his late father’s secret cabinet moved him to tears

He was a triad leader ready to kill the man who slighted him, when this miracle happened