Man accused of attempted murder says he had no intention to kill ex-girlfriend
Getty file photo
SINGAPORE — Two conflicting accounts were heard in court on Tuesday (Jan 31) over a healthcare worker’s alleged attempt to murder a nursing student, with the prosecution charging that the accused attacked his victim because of unrequited love, while the accused himself claimed that it was a suicide gone wrong.
Healthcare assistant Varadharajan Mahadevan Mahadevan reportedly stabbed and slashed the student multiple times at the void deck of a public housing block where she lived, on the morning of December 20, 2013. The victim, now 23, still bears the scars today.
She and her family members cannot be named due to a gag order to protect her identity.
Through a Tamil interpreter, Varadharajan, now 33, told the High Court repeatedly at the start of trial on Tuesday: “She was my former girlfriend and I had no intention to kill her… I had attempted suicide and in that attempt, I inflicted wounds on her. I am remorseful for my act and I plead for Your Honour to give me a reduced sentence.”
The two got to know each other while she was on attachment at a public hospital where he worked.
Prosecutors, however, said that Varadharajan admitted at least three times to the police that he had intended to kill her. They charged that Varadharajan had launched the “relentless and vicious attack” on the victim after she and her parents rejected his marriage proposals at least twice.
The victim’s parents both testified that Varadharajan had turned up outside their home and demanded for their daughter’s hand in marriage. The father said: “I told him my daughter is not interested, that she has a fiance…Then he turned a bit violent… (using) some vulgarities against me.”
He advised his daughter to make a police report when he heard her complaining that Varadharajan was harassing her, but she did not. The father said: “She told me, he came here to work, I don’t want to spoil his rice bowl, he (has to take care of) a family (back home).”
By November 2013, it was “clear to the accused that his affections for the victim were not reciprocated”, the prosecution said.
Still, he showed up again a day before the alleged assault to propose marriage, carrying along jewellery and a sari, but was rejected again, the victim’s father said. He added that the accused reacted more violently this time to the refusal because he was heavily drunk. “(He) used all sorts of vulgar words against me… (He was) pushing the gates more heavily than the previous time.”
The police was called and Varadharajan was advised to leave.
Prosecutors charged that the accused then went home, took along a knife with a 20cm-blade, and headed back to the victim’s place. He slept at the void deck and at about 8.30am the next day, he confronted the girl while she was on her way to school. When she refused his advances, he allegedly stabbed her in the lower back and again in her abdomen. When she fell, he continued attacking her.
“The knife was also wielded with such force that when it missed the victim and hit the floor instead, it caused the tip of the blade to bend,” the prosecution said.
The victim sustained wounds at her head, neck, abdomen, both shoulders and hands, and right hip. Four specialist teams attended to her in the hospital and she was given 46 days of hospitalisation leave.
In court on Tuesday, her parents were visibly enraged as they rejected the defence lawyer’s suggestion that their daughter was in an “intimate relationship” with Varadharajan and was “pestering (him) to (take) her to India to get married because of her poor relationship with her parents”.
The victim’s mother told the court that her daughter has been having fitful sleep after the assault, breaking into sudden screams in the middle of the night.
The trial continues on Wednesday.
If found guilty of attempted murder causing hurt to the victim, Varadharajan could be jailed for life.
