Man jailed for slashing bus ticket inspector

SINGAPORE - A man who slashed a bus ticket inspector with a penknife as he tried to help his son flee an alleged robbery was jailed for three months yesterday.

Govindasamy Lakshmanan, 52, waved the 10cm blade at a crowd as two Bangladeshi men tried to pull his son Rubenkumar off the No. 67 service. The 22-year-old had allegedly been part of a gang that robbed a relative of the men in Little India.

As Lakshmanan wielded the knife, he caught the back of SMRT ticket inspector Lim Chow Chen, 52, leaving her with a 5cm cut which resulted in her needing four days of medical leave.

The cargo handler admitted causing hurt and being found with a dangerous weapon without a lawful purpose. His sentence was backdated to when he was remanded on Nov 19 last year and he was released from prison yesterday.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Chee Ee Ling told the court that on Nov 17 last year, Lakshmanan and his two sons Rubenkumar, 22, and Sathya Kumar, 25, took a cab to the Tekka Centre area.

They met two of Rubenkumar's friends and decided to look for someone to steal money from.

The five walked to an open field opposite Mustafa Centre where they met three more friends.

Apart for Lakshmanan, who stood some distance away, the group allegedly proposed robbing a Bangladeshi national who was carrying a laptop bag.

At about 9.30pm, the group followed him to a traffic junction in Serangoon Road where they punched him and grabbed the bag, the court heard.

Rubenkumar allegedly fled with it and boarded a bus but he was followed by two relatives of the Bangladeshi national who tried to pull Rubenkumar off the vehicle with the help of other passengers.

Lakshmanan took out the penknife and waved it wildly at the crowd, demanding that they stop pulling his son out of the bus. As he did so, he slashed the back of Ms Lim, a Malaysian.

Lakshmanan and Rubenkumar were subsequently arrested. Rubenkumar and his co-accused have not been dealt with. The maximum penalty for causing hurt through a rash act is a year's jail and $5,000 fine.

This article was first published on June 10, 2014.
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