M Krishnan was upset about his girlfriend’s relationships with other men when he punched and kicked her, the court heard.
Mallika Begum Rahamansa Abdul Rahman was aged 40 when she died on January 17, 2019, the day Krishnan was arrested. Krishnan, 40, pleaded guilty in the High Court last week. His sentence was backdated to the date of his arrest.
He started dating Mallika in 2015, but he was already married to another woman at the time, court documents showed. Mallika had two daughters from two previous marriages.
Sometime in November 2015, Krishnan’s wife caught the two of them drinking alcohol in the master bedroom of their marital home. Upset, she uttered vulgarities at Krishnan and he then punched her in the face before grabbing a whisky bottle. Afraid that he would hurl the bottle at her, the wife apologized and later obtained a personal protection order against him.
Krishnan and Mallika continued their relationship up until her death. During their time together, Krishnan hit Mallika at least once in 2017 “over a trivial matter”, court documents said.
The abuse intensified at the start of 2019 after Mallika admitted to having sex with several men, including when Krishnan was in jail in 2018. Krishnan kicked and slapped Mallika in the face, punched her in the ribs and kicked her in the thigh on January 15, 2019. This was after she confessed to cheating while they were drinking alcohol in the flat they shared.
As she pleaded with him not to leave, he grabbed her by the neck and pushed her, causing her to fall and hit her head against a wardrobe. She got up, stumbled to the kitchen and slumped in front of a cabinet. He told her to get up and when she did not, he pushed her forehead, causing her to hit her head against the cabinet.
The next day, Mallika sought medical treatment at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and was found to have several scrapes and bruises. While Mallika was at the hospital, Krishnan drank alcohol throughout the day. At night, they spoke with Mallika’s sister over the phone about Mallika’s relationship with another man.
Feeling angry and frustrated over her various relations with other men, Krishnan assaulted Mallika again. He slapped her face, grabbed her by her hair, and punched and kicked her. After kicking her repeatedly while she was on the ground, he helped her to bed and realized that she was not responsive or breathing. He then called the Singapore Civil Defense Force at about 1.35am. Mallika was pronounced dead later that night.
An autopsy found that she had died from a head injury, with several bruises on her scalp, back of her neck, face and around her body. Several of her ribs were also fractured.
During sentencing on Monday, Deputy Public Prosecutor Timotheus Koh told the court that Krishnan had asked a friend to let him sleep in his flat after the assault. In the afternoon of January 17, 2019, Krishnan surrendered himself to police.
After his arrest, Krishnan was diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder – a condition where there are frequent impulsive anger outbursts or aggression – which was found to have contributed to his offense. However, the level of violence he inflicted on his girlfriend was “likely caused by the alcohol intoxication adding to the intermittent explosive disorder”, court documents showed.
The prosecution sought a sentence of 15-18 years’ jail, urging the court to “send a clear message that the courts do not tolerate violence of this nature”. Koh said that although Krishnan’s mental disorder was diagnosed after the offense, he had a history of “socially unacceptable behaviour” involving violence while intoxicated.
This included Krishnan’s mitigation plea in 2018 for being verbally abusive and spitting on police officers, where he acknowledged that alcohol had “severely clouded my decision at the time”. He said that Krishnan had been referred for counseling due to domestic violence that occurred from 2015 to 2016, and that his actions showed his “propensity for abusing his domestic partners”.
“No mitigating weight should be placed on whatever emotions that the accused was feeling after the deceased’s confessions to him about her relations with other men,” Koh said. “The accused is not in the position to punish the deceased for her purported infidelity.”
During mitigation, Krishnan’s lawyer said that his client had pleaded guilty early, surrendered to the police and fully cooperated during investigations. Krishnan had been controlling his alcohol intake – drinking only on weekends when he was not working, he added. However, it was Mallika’s relationships with other men that had “affected his judgment”.
“He thought alcohol would assist him to cope with his feelings,” the lawyer said.
Justice Valerie Thean said during sentencing that although Krishnan’s intermittent explosive disorder had contributed to his violent actions, alcohol had also been an influence. She added that even though he was diagnosed with the disorder after the offense, “the accused knew he was susceptible to showing his temper in socially unacceptable ways” through his past brushes with the law.
Thean noted that Krishnan had promised he was a reformed individual in 2018 in his mitigation, but had continued to abuse his wife and girlfriend. Saying that she could not overlook his repeated domestic abuse against women, she sentenced him to 20 years in jail.
For culpable homicide not amounting to murder, the maximum penalty is life imprisonment and caning, or a jail term of up to 20 years and a fine or caning.
