Pandan Loop murder: Was victim bashed to death?

Less than a month after returning to Singapore, a foreign worker was found dead in mysterious circumstances at Pandan Loop on Saturday night.

The man's body was found lying face down on a small road leading to the West Coast Highway in the direction of Jalan Buroh.

He is believed to be 26-year-old Indian national Suresh Kumar.

A group of Malaysian workers found his body in a pool of blood and promptly called the authorities.

Police said they received a call around 10.30pm on Saturday and have classified his death as murder. Investigations are ongoing.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force said the deceased had sustained trauma injuries on his head and neck, and deformities on his left hand.

Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene at about 10.50pm.

Mr Suresh had worked for Poly NDT, which specialises in conducting materials testing in the shipping industry, reported Shin Min Daily News.

The company is located in the Pandan Loop industrial estate, near where the body was found.

Both Shin Min and Lianhe Wanbao said Mr Suresh had recently been working at a shipyard in Tuas.

The Chinese evening papers also quoted Mr Suresh's colleagues as saying that he had returned to work on Aug 1 after taking a month off to celebrate his elder brother's wedding in India.

Mr Suresh, who is the younger of two sons, had been working in Singapore for the past seven years.

His supervisor, who wanted to be known only as Mr Kumar, told Shin Min that he last saw Mr Suresh leaving the office at about 3.30pm on Saturday.

Mr Suresh called him shortly before 10pm to ask him when he would be returning to the office.

Mr Kumar said: "I told him that I was going to come back only after midnight and he said, 'In that case, I'm going out to have my meal.'"

Wanbao quoted an unidentified man as saying that a group of foreign workers hanging around a nearby coffee shop had told him that there was a fight and that someone had been beaten to death with a wooden rod.

Police officers were seen climbing into the canal parallel to the road where the body was found, apparently to search for the murder weapon. It has not been found yet, reported Wanbao.

DILIGENT WORKER

A colleague told Shin Min that he was surprised Mr Suresh was in the office at such a late hour because it is usually deserted after 5pm.

But he said Mr Suresh could have stayed late because he was known to be a diligent worker.

Mr Suresh's cousin, who also works here, told Wanbao that the deceased usually worked a half-day on Saturday and would return to his rental flat in Woodlands.

A manager at Poly NDT, identified as Mr Zhang, said the company would arrange to send the body back to India with the help of Mr Suresh's cousin and would pay for funeral expenses.