Singapore jails Indian for giving police false info

Singapore: An Indian national has been jailed for two weeks for falsely accusing two persons of forcing her into prostitution as she did not want her husband to find out how she was earning a living in Singapore.

Kalaiselvi Murugiyan (24) made a police report last year claiming that a man and a woman had forced her to become a prostitute, The Straits Times reported on Tuesday.

She pleaded guilty to giving false information to Police Inspector Mohamed Raffiq Mohamed Ishak of the Central Police Division.

Court documents did not say what she was working as in Singapore. The court heard that Kalaiselvi went to the Rochor Neighbourhood Police Centre on November 1 last year to make a report.

She was referred to the Central Police Division to have her statement recorded. The Specialised Crime Branch then investigated the case.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Grace Goh told the court that Kalaiselvi lied to Inspector Raffiq while giving her statement at the Police Cantonment Complex on November 1. The man and woman were later arrested. Kalaiselvi owned up to her lies at around 2.30 pm the next day. Kalaiselvi, who was not represented by a lawyer, told District Judge Christopher Tan on Tuesday that she did not want to go to jail.

She pleaded for forgiveness and said she had to take care of her family members in India.

Before handing down the sentence, Judge Tan stressed that two persons had been falsely implicated and arrested as a result of her lies. "Valuable police resources were wasted," he said. For giving false information to a police officer, Kalaiselvi could have been jailed for up to a year and fined up to SGD 5,000.