Ministerial statement: K Shanmugam on allegations surrounding suicide of Sgt Uvaraja Gopal

In Parliament on Tuesday (Feb 6), Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam delivered a ministerial statement on allegations made by a police officer shortly before he committed suicide in July 2023. In a Facebook post, Sgt Uvaraja Gopal said he had been bullied and ill-treated by superiors and colleagues; misconduct by some officers had been covered up; his performance appraisals had been unfair; and he was ostracised at work. Mr Shanmugam said investigations have found that some allegations were true and in those cases, action was taken at the time. However, some allegations were untrue. One of the claims was about name-calling. It was found that racially inappropriate language was used while officers were chatting among themselves. Though the remarks were not specifically directed at Uvaraja, Mr Shanmugam said they were “not acceptable, period”. The officer apologised to Uvaraja immediately, in front of the whole team. Uvaraja was offered the option of lodging an official complaint but declined to do so. Since then, said Mr Shanmugam, the police have reviewed their policies and instituted a framework for cases involving racial slurs or casual racism. Such incidents will now be investigated as misconduct to ensure that there is a record, disciplinary action is taken and the officer’s subsequent behaviour can be closely monitored. Meanwhile, claims by Uvaraja that various superiors had used abusive language against him, that his complaints against fellow officers vaping had been covered up, that he had been unfairly held back in his career and treated like an outcast by his team were found to be unsupported. Mr Shanmugam said the Attorney-General’s Chambers reviewed the internal findings by the police and was satisfied that no further actions were needed. The minister also set out how the police had supported Uvaraja over the years as he faced health and family problems. In fact, as a result of those problems, Uvaraja was the subject of three ongoing criminal and disciplinary investigations at the time of his suicide. Mr Shanmugam said that the police had allowed Uvaraja to take substantial amounts of time off - an average of about 120 days of leave annually from 2014 to 2023. They engaged him when his performance was seen to be below average and set achievable targets for him. Mr Shanmugam also outlined his ministry’s efforts to support officers’ mental well-being as well as the Home Team’s framework to deal with workplace harassment and grievances. He revealed that in the past five years, Home Team departments investigated 310 cases, 131 of which were substantiated and disciplinary action taken. Six of the cases overall involved racial discrimination and three were substantiated. Mr Shanmugam noted that police forces around the world are facing increasing challenges for reasons that include laxer laws, inadequate pay, corruption in the system and unfair attacks against the police. He said the vast majority of Singapore police officers have a strong ethos, esprit de corps and integrity. So, when unfair statements are made against them or the force, these must be dealt with robustly so that public trust is not eroded.