Indian-origin recalcitrant offender gets jail term, ordered 12 cane
strokes in Singapore

TCSN Desk

A 29-year-old Indian-origin recalcitrant offender, who
handed his alleged accomplice a harpoon that was later used to stab a man, was
on Tuesday sentenced to nearly 22 months in jail and ordered to receive 12 cane
strokes by a court in Singapore. S. Mageshwaran, who also committed some
other offences when he was under a remission order between September 3, 2020,
and October 1, 2021  a period during which he was supposed to be out of
trouble  earlier pleaded guilty to multiple crimes

including harassment,
having the harpoon, and traffic offences. He was sentenced to 17 months, 19
weeks, and three days in jail for the possession of the weapon, The Straits
Times newspaper reported. He will spend five more days behind bars in
addition to the original sentencing. For driving carelessly, Mageshwaran was
disqualified from holding or obtaining all classes of driving licences for four
months from his date of release.The prosecution said that he was out on bail when
he handed the harpoon to Sheran Raj Balasubramaniam, 23, who stabbed the victim.
The victim, also 23, was found to be bleeding profusely with the 20 cm-long
weapon stuck in his back following the attack in June 2022. In earlier
proceedings, Public Prosecutor Melissa Heng said Mageshwaran was convicted of
having a dangerous weapon in 2019. He was later sentenced to three years and
three months in jail and was released in 2020.Mageshwaran was under a remission order when he
reoffended on November 30, 2020. He had used vulgar language against a
33-year-old policeman in the Little India precinct while drunk. He was then
arrested and released on bail. On June 3, 2022, Mageshwaran carried the
weapon to Candy Bar with Sheran Raj. Mageshwaran had the harpoon in his
possession when Sheran Raj picked him up in a taxi and he, along the way,
handed it over to Sheran Raj who kept it in the left pocket of his shorts.
According to court documents, Sheran Raj later used it to stab the victim
outside the Candy Bar.DPP Heng did not disclose the reason behind the
attack. Meanwhile, Mageshwaran got into a dispute with another 22-year-old man,
and they shouted at each other. The younger man’s friends intervened and his group
of six other people later went to Labrador Nature Reserve to continue drinking
alcohol. Still unhappy, Mageshwaran retrieved a machete from his mother’s flat
before making his way to Labrador Park, a popular F&B sea-facing place.
Mageshwaran charged towards the seven men, waving the machete, after which they
ran away. The police were alerted and officers arrested Mageshwaran soon after.
In an unrelated case, he also committed traffic offences including driving a
car without a licence and careless driving in Yishun in September 2021,
according to the Singapore daily report. Defence lawyer N. Divanan said
Mageshwaran suffered from major depressive disorder and his failure to exercise
consequential thinking during the traffic offences was due to his relationship
issues.