Renukha Arumugam, 30, was charged with five counts under the COVID-19 Act after she allegedly left her house on a few occasions to meet her boyfriend.
The charges include two charges of meeting individuals not from her household for a social purpose, two of leaving her house without reasonable excuse and one count of not wearing a mask properly when outside.
Renukha stated in court that she was really sorry for everything and it was not in her intention to break the law. She further stated: “I’m unemployed, so if you are going to give me a heavy fine, I don’t think I can pay,”
She will return to court on Jun 10 to plead guilty. She faces a maximum six months’ jail, a fine up to S$10,000, or both per charge.
A Singaporean woman who was charged for assaulting a police officer, insulting a staff at sun plaza and not wearing her face mask would be claiming trial.
Kasturi Govindasamy Retnamsamy replied the judge “I think I would be the best person to hold counsel for myself.” when asked if she was engaging a lawyer.
She further stated, “If I’m not claiming trial I will not be here.”
In reply to the charges from the prosecution, she said that she did not understand the offences.
On 9 May, Kasturi was handed five charges relating to the incident at Sun Plaza on 7 May, including struggling and resisting arrest, using abusive words on a police officer, and verbally abusing another man and two women. She allegedly told the woman, “COVID-19 is because of you Chinese” and “scan the IC b***h”.
For our fellow Singaporean Muslim friends, this year’s Hari Rayi holidays would have to be celebrated differently. The typical Hari Raya holiday would be celebrated by visiting relatives, eating good food and enjoying the close family time together.
But with the current circuit breaker measures, many families will be celebrating with just the people in their house hold.
A video of an elderly man went viral when he made a heartfelt plea to Minister Lee to ease the circuit breaker measures on the first day of the Hari Raya holidays to allow the Muslim community to visit their family.
In the video, he is seen requesting to allow specifically children, grandchildren and grandparents to visit each other on just the first day of Raya. He further stated that PM Lee is kindhearted and he would understand the current situation that he is in.
Siti Hawanmah who was touched by the elderly man’s actions wrote a letter on his behalf to the Prime Minister’s Office asking to ease the circuit breaker on May 24. The letter said:
“It is a sad and quiet Ramadan for all us (sic) Muslims in Singapore and this is the time we must gather to do our prayers together however we had (sic) to abide to the rules to stay safe and work together as a (sic) citizen of Singapore.
Can first day of Hari Raya be an exceptional (sic) for all of us?”
Many Singaporeans have supported the appeal but there are others who were against it as well. I guess this is indeed an extremely tough decision to make.
It is now illegal to eat and hunt wild animals in Wuhan, China, after wet markets got blamed to have caused the global coronavirus crisis.
The government of Hubei Province, China, announced the new policy on May 13, 2020.
A notice on the city’s municipal Government website stated that ban will come into immediate effect on Wednesday and will last for five years.
The new policy prohibits hunting and consumption of all wild land animals, which includes protected and endangered wild aquatic species. The ban is going to stay in the province for the next 5 years.
The move come amid mounting pressure for China to crack down on the illegal wildlife trade blamed by many for the pandemic that has killed more than 320,000 people.
Japan the land of culture, scenery and tasty seafood has some good news for you.
As Japan was hit hard in the tourism industry the Japanese is coming out with plans to bring back tourism to Japan.
The Japanese government is planning a budget of S$17.8 billion to help tourist cover their expenses in Japan. The government plans to bring back tourist as early in July, the plan will only begin after COVID-19 rates have greatly decreased in the country.
They have not released the details how the plan is going to work, but travel analysis believes that there will be a long queue at the airport to recover the 50% spend in Japan.
For Singaporeans that wants to travel to Japan will have to wait for the country to unlock the travelling restrictions which will be sometime later.
According to the media release, a 46-year-old man and 45-year-old woman were arrested on 20 May 2020 due to drug-related offence.
The incident happened at 5 am on the 20 May 2020, the duo vehicle was found blocking the way of others in the middle of the road within the carpark. A resident alerted the police after noticing the duo passing out in the vehicle.
According to a resident, 5 police officers were spotted on the scene and the duo was sent to the hospital in an ambulance. After receiving treatment in the hospital, the duo was tested positive for drugs.
According to the police, the man was found driving with a suspended licence and the woman was found carrying a deadly weapon along with stolen items in her possession.
Mr Tan Ming Yew, a lawyer, bought a Mazda 3 from Viking Motor In June 2018. The next month, he brought the two year old car to Mazda agent Trans Eurokars because he heard rattling noises.
To his horror, he discovered that the car’s actual mileage was around 76,000km which was more than six times what the odometer was showing.
His case of misrepresentation was heard in court but it was dismissed by District Judge Tan May Tee, who stated that he had “failed to prove the essential facts of his claim in misrepresentation”.
The case was hinged on a photocopy of an invoice by Trans Eurokars which stated that the odometer was tampered with and due to this, its warranty was void. Viking Motor denied the claims of tampering.
Judge Tan said: “One would have expected the plaintiff to call the Mazda engineer or technician who conducted the test to come to court and testify as to his findings and conclusion.
“If any document had been generated which contained such findings, the original should have been produced to the court and the maker called to prove the truth of its contents.
“Had these stamps been taken by the plaintiff, he would have undoubtedly presented a compelling case for the defendant to answer.”
The judge stated that Mr Tan should have called a witness from the diagnostic department of Mazda to to provide evidence instead of calling on the testimony of a Mazda customer service officer.
The judge then proceeded to dismiss the case with cost due to a technicality of insufficient evidence.
A 45-year-old man was arrested by the police on suspicion of working for loansharks as a runner.
The police issued a statement yesterday (May 21) that the police was alerted by an individual on 11 March 2020 saying that she was harassed by an illegal money lender. The loanshark asked the victim to transfer money to a bank account in order to process her loan request.
After investigation, the police confirmed the identity of the loan shark runner. The man collects ATM cards from the loansharks and harassed victims by asking them to transfer money to these accounts.
On the 20th May 2020, the police set up an ambush in Yishun and found a man that matches the description and sucessfully arrested him. The police found items related to loansharks on the man, including a mobile phone with information about illegal lenders, an ATM card and three bank transaction receipts. The man was subsequently arrested by the police and the items were also confiscated.
Initial investigations revealed that the man is believed to be a runner and assisted the loanshark to process transactions using ATM.
Members of the public are advised to stay away from loansharks and not work with or assist loansharks in any way. The public can call the Police at ‘999’ or the X-Ah Long hotline at 1800-924-5664 if they suspect or know of anyone who could be involved in loansharking activities.
10 Indian Nationals were caught having tea at a flat located in Balestier, Kim Keat Road.
The 3 tenants of the apartment invited 7 others over for tea, They breached the safe distancing measure and faces charges in court. The accuse claims that they were studying.
The tenants are
27-year-old Avinash Kaur
20-year-old Navdeep Singh
21-year-old Sajandeep Singh,
They each face one to three charges that falls Covid-19 (Temporary Measures).
7 other friends were charged as well for breaching CB measures
20-year-old Armpit Kumar
23-year-old Bhullar Jasteena
30-year-old Karmjit Singh
26-year-old Mohammed Imran Pasha
21-year-old Sharma Lukesh
20-year-old Vijay Kumar, 20
33-year-old Waseem Akram
Not all of the 10 individuals intend to plead guilty and they will return to court on the 3rd June.
They are facing a fine of up to $10,000 and/or jail of 6 months.
Nigel Pang Yew Ming, 17, guilty plea was rejected after he said that he did not consent to ‘how to spread Wuhan virus’ caption.
He was accused of drinking juice from bottles before placing them back on the super market shelf NTUC FairPrice supermarket at 2 Bukit Batok West Avenue 7. The whole incident was filmed before posting it on instagram with the captions “how to spread Wuhan virus” .
Pang was in court with his mother to plead guilty to his actions, but insisted that he did not know about the caption. As a result, the judge rejected his plea as he said this formed an important part of the charge.
“I wish to add that actually I didn’t know that the caption ‘how to spread Wuhan’ was being uploaded to the video, because that wasn’t my intention of the video,” said Pang.
“I really did not know that the caption ‘how to spread Wuhan’ was being added until it went viral, then I realised it was being added,” said Pang, who was unrepresented.
