Indian-origin man admits to attacking cop in Singapore
Darpan News Desk IANS, 02 Jun, 2023 01:51 PM
Singapore, June 2 (IANS) An Indian-origin man in Singapore admitted to attacking a police officer in 2020 and leaving him with a bloody face, a media report said.
Nikhil M. Durgude, 25, pleaded guilty on Thursday to eight charges including one for voluntarily causing hurt to deter a public servant from his duty, The Straits Times reported.
Also charged with possessing cannabis and consuming methamphetamine, Nikhil is expected to be sentenced on June 16.
According to court documents, three officers, including Senior Staff Sergeant Chua Ming Cheng and Inspector Zheng Yiyang, went to a unit at City Suites in Balestier as part of a police operation on November 5, 2020.
They identified themselves as police to Nikhil and his accomplices, Prakash Mathivanan and Malani Naidu Prabhakar.
After a while, Prakash lunged at Staff Sergeant Chua, causing him to fall. He then hit the officer in the face and upper body, the report said.
When Inspector Zheng pointed his revolver at Prakash asking him to stop attacking, the latter grabbed his hands.
Before Chua could get up and assist Inspector Zheng, he was attacked by Nikhil, who punched and kicked him repeatedly. He fell again and Nikhil continued to assault Chua as he lay on the floor, The Straits Times reported.
"The accused did so to prevent Staff Sergeant Chua from assisting Inspector Zheng, and intending, therefore, to deter Chua from discharging his duty as such public servant," the prosecution told the court
Nikhil stopped his attack on Chua when two other officers were led into the unit after some time.
The three men were arrested and taken to the Central Police Division headquarters where the authorities detected methamphetamine in Nikhil's urine after tests.
Staff Sergeant Chua suffered a cut on the forehead and abrasions on his right elbow and left forearm, and was admitted to Singapore General Hospital for treatment.
For voluntarily causing hurt to a public servant, Nikhil could be jailed for up to seven years, caned, or fined.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last week warned the Delta variant of the virus is so contagious, vaccinated people who do get infected could be just as big a risk to others as people who aren't vaccinated.
The new requirement, which will be phased in over several weeks in August and September, is the most aggressive step the city has taken yet to curb a surge in cases caused by the delta variant.
The findings have the potential to upend past thinking about how the disease is spread. Previously, vaccinated people who got infected were thought to have low levels of virus and to be unlikely to pass it to others. But the new data shows that is not the case with the delta variant.
President Joe Biden is calling on states and local governments to join those that are already handing out dollars for shots. New York, the nation's biggest city, started doling out $100 awards on Friday.
The internal documents also cite studies from Canada, Singapore and Scotland showing that the delta variant may pose a greater risk for hospitalization, intensive care treatment and death than the alpha variant, first detected in the United Kingdom.
The dead included a 82-year-old man in Akseki’s Kepezbeleni neighborhood, where some 80% of the houses were incinerated, the district’s governor, Volkan Hulur, told the the state-run Anadolu Agency.
