Man jailed for threatening to kill himself and mother using gas fumes
Depressed that his ex-wife would not allow him to see his daughter, Shanker Raju Krishnasamy told his mother he wanted to die together with her. So, he turned on the gas stove in his mother’s apartment and lit a cigarette.
In the State Courts on Friday (5 January), Shanker, 38, was sentenced to three years and three weeks’ jail after he pleaded guilty to one charge of criminal intimidation for threatening his mother with death, and one charge of committing a rash act.
He also pleaded guilty to breaching a Personal Protection Order against his ex-wife for posting remarks online alleging that she was having an affair.
Four other charges under the Public Order and Nuisance Act and Protection from Harassment Act were taken into consideration.
According to court documents, on 12 May 2017 Shanker began shouting at his mother after consuming two cans of beer at about 9.30pm. He consumed more alcohol and continued shouting at her about an hour later. He then went to the kitchen and turned on the gas stove, releasing gas fumes.
He then lit a cigarette and said to her in Tamil, “Let’s die together”. He also stopped her from trying to turn off the stove, then locked the gate of the unit. Shanker also prevented his mother from trying to open the gate to leave, and pushed her to the ground.
Alarmed, his mother called the police. When the police arrived, Shanker refused to listen to their instructions to turn off the gas. He cut himself with a scissors in front of the officers and lit a second cigarette. When he realised that he could not cause an explosion, he switched off the gas stove, punched a cupboard in the unit, and surrendered himself to the police. The gas stove had remained turned on for about half an hour.
In a separate incident on 21 April last year, Shanker made unsavoury remarks about his ex-wife on Facebook and also threatened to kill her. This prompted his ex-wife to make a police report about him.
Asking for a jail term of three years and six weeks, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Sruthi Boppana said Shanker had been assessed by the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) to pose a high risk of harmful behaviour to himself and others because of his alcohol use and Major Depressive Disorder. He also had multiple incidents in the past involving violence towards his family members.
Shanker endangered the lives of his neighbours, his mother, the police officer and himself with his actions, and a deterrent message must be sent, said Boppana.
Shanker’s lawyer, Sherrie Han, asked for a total jail term of six months and one week, saying that Shanker slipped into depression and turned to alcohol to cope when his ex-wife would not let him see his daughter for her birthday.
Han said that Shanker’s actions were precipitated by a distressed emotional state, and that his need for psychiatric help hadn’t been undiagnosed until recently. The lawyer also referred to the IMH report that said that a combination of depression and alcohol contributed to her client’s mental state.
District Judge May Mesenas said she had seen Shanker’s IMH report. “You are clearly very troubled and you take a certain way of coping with it… Taking alcohol is not productive,” she said to Shanker.
“You have endangered your life and the lives of your loved ones,” said DJ Mesenas. She noted that Shanker also showed a lack of remorse over the defamatory Facebook remarks about his ex-wife.
The judge also said that Shanker should take his medication and seek help at a halfway house after release from prison. DJ Mesenas also commented that the sentence should be sufficiently long for Shanker to reflect on his actions.
For committing criminal intimidation with a threat to cause death or grievous hurt, he could have been jailed up to seven years.
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