SINGAPORE — Upset with his estranged wife for turning down his requests to see their infant daughter and extend his visa, the Indian national held her at knifepoint and slit her throat at the doorstep of her flat.
She survived the 2013 life-threatening attack, and on Friday (Nov 4), Krishnan Karunakaran was sentenced to eight years’ jail and nine strokes of the cane for attempted culpable homicide.
A High Court heard that Krishnan, 45, had married Singaporean Boomichelvi Ramasamy, 38, in a temple in India in January 2011.
He moved to Singapore in July 2012, and lived with his wife, a teacher, in a flat in Hougang. Their relationship soured and they separated in June 2013.
Krishnan had to move out of the flat, while Ms Boomichelvi continued to live there with a domestic helper and two children — the one-year-old daughter she has with Krishnan, and a nine-year-old girl from her previous marriage.
On the evening of Oct 26 that year, Krishnan met his estranged wife at the void deck of her Hougang flat. He wanted to see their child and also asked her to extend his visa, but she refused his demands.
According to his lawyer Eugene Thuraisingam, Krishnan was driven to desperation and decided to buy a 24cm-long knife to “scare and threaten” Ms Boomichelvi.
The next morning, he hid the knife under his singlet and waited for her at the lift lobby of her block.
Upon seeing Ms Boomichelvi once the lift door opened, Krishnan dashed in and held her at knifepoint, repeating his demands from the previous evening. They went up to the fifth floor, with him pointing the knife at her back as they walked to her flat.
When Ms Boomichelvi’s domestic helper and elder daughter opened the door, the estranged couple started struggling.
At one point, Krishnan lowered the knife, giving the impression that he was aborting the attack. Then, catching his wife off-guard, he slashed her throat and shouted “Die!” before fleeing.
Once he reached the void deck, Krishnan called the police, informing them that he had stabbed his wife accidentally due to a family problem.
“I was threatening her with knife and when she came near to hit me, the knife hit her neck,” he told the police.
But Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Mohamed Faizal dismissed any notion of Krishan being concerned about his wife’s well-being when he made that phone call to the police.
“He was thinking and engineering a defence for himself. Clearly, he knew he would be identified because he attacked her in front of her daughter and maid.”
The DPP added that the elder daughter had to go through the trauma of witnessing her mother being attacked. The child had called the police, informing them that “got one guy kill my mother (and) got blood coming out”.
Mr Thuraisingam, however, argued that Krishnan had been “provoked”.
“…There was a fight. He lost control of himself and he cut his wife’s neck…(It) was one stab in the spur of the moment,” the lawyer said.
Justice Chan Seng Onn pointed out that Krishnan should not have resorted to violence in his desperation to see his daughter.
“You should have resorted to the legal process, not take matters into your own hands… you were lucky she survived,” he said.
