Man gets jail after trying to poison nephew with stolen insecticide
A Malaysian man was jailed for six months yesterday after he spiked his nephew's drink with stolen insecticide.
The man, Nithye Kumeren Alagapan, 26, pleaded guilty yesterday to one charge of attempting to cause hurt by means of poison. Another charge was taken into consideration during sentencing.
Nithye, 26, and his victim, 20, worked as retail assistants at the FairPrice hypermarket in Nex.
The court heard that Nithye came to Singapore to earn money as his mother had cancer and got the job with the help of his nephew and sister.
In June this year, his nephew scolded Nithye for sleeping in the toilet during work hours, angering Nithye.
Shortly after, the victim left a carton of chocolate milk on the table in the preparation room of the supermarket and left the room for his break.
Minutes later, Nithye took a bottle of Horti On insecticide from one of the shelves in the supermarket.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Kwang Jia Min said Nithye then went to the preparation room and poured some of the insecticide into the milk and then threw the bottle of insecticide into the dustbin.
When the victim returned to the room to drink his milk, he smelled something toxic coming from the drink and decided not to drink it.
Three days later, he lodged a police report that his drink had been spiked.
A Health Sciences Authority report found the drink contained malathion, an insecticide that is poisonous.
In mitigation, Nithye's lawyer T.M Sinnadurai said his client and his nephew could not get along as the nephew would frequently pick on his client's mistakes.
Nithye had thus acted on impulse due to his accumulated anger.
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