A man is facing charges after he verbally altercation with a bus captain with comments one would describe as xenophobic.
44-year-old Nimal De Silva is contesting the charge against him that falls under the harassment act despite pleading guilty in September 2021. reported Channel News Asia (CNA)
What happened?
De Silva wore a neck gaiter instead of a regular facemask when he was boarding a bus in the vicinity of Nicoll Highway MRT.
The bus driver was not sure if a neck gaiter constitutes an approved mask and refused De Silva from boarding the bus, the bus captain then contacted his office to clarify if it is accepted.
However, De Silva did not take kindly to it and opened the bus door with the button located outside the bus and boarded the bus. He began live streaming on Facebook of the incident and said
“This is the problem when you have China people working in Singapore,” and “Speak English. You’re not in China right now.”
“You are going to go down,”
“These bastards are basically ah, playing punk. Let’s play punk together.”
Escalating
A passenger on the bus offered De Silva a facemask but De Silva refused it and disrupted the bus service.
For harassing a public worker, he can be jailed up to 1 year and/or fine $5,000