Two friends who went on a graffiti spree, vandalising public and private property, were each jailed for six weeks on Friday.
Security guard Muhammad Shukri Noordin, 26, and lab engineer Muhammad Ismail, 27, met during National Service and talked about their interest in graffiti.
At around 11pm on Feb 17 this year, they used a black permanent marker to vandalise a Land Transport Authority (LTA) overground street lighting box on North Bridge Road.
Four hours later they vandalised another LTA overground box along Hindoo Road, before targeting other areas including a pillar at the Singapore Pools Building at Middle Road, an SP Powergrid overground box, a wooden fence along Prinsep Street and a drainage wall beside Bugis MRT station.
Both pleaded guilty last month. Neither were represented in court on Friday.
They were each sentenced by District Judge Wong Choon Ning on four counts of mischief. Muhammad Shukri had five other charges taken into consideration, while Muhammad Ismail had four others.
Both have made compensation of $310 each to SMRT and SP Powergrid.
For mischief, they could have been jailed up to a year and fined.
The Malaysian transport agency said that it was misquoted in media reports that it wanted the proposed high-speed railway to end in Johor Baru rather than in Jurong East in Singapore.
Instead, it actually prefers to have the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur line end in Singapore’s central business district, said Malaysia’s Land Public Transport Commision (SPAD) chief executive Mohamad Nur Ismal Kamal in a press release late last night.
Earlier on Friday, Singapore’s Transport Ministry had issued a strongly worded statement to say that it was surprised that the SPAD had stated in media reports that it wanted the HSR to end in Johor rather than in Singapore.
Mr Mohamad Nur had said in a The Edge Malaysia on Monday that “we would prefer to terminate the line at the existing CIQ (customs, immigration and quarantine) complex. However, Singapore wants it to terminate in Jurong East and understandably so.”
The MOT said that terminating the HSR in Johor would undermine the objectives of the link.
“Our understanding is that Malaysia views the commercial premise of the KL-Singapore HSR project, and with which we agree, as being based on a direct connection between the two city centres.
“Terminating the HSR in Johor Baru will not achieve this objective,” it said.
In a statement released in response to media queries, MOT reiterated that last year, Malaysia had chosen its terminus to be in Bandar Malaysia.
But late on Friday, the SPAD chief said that he was “regrettably misquoted” in the report.
“We would have preferred to terminate the line at the CBD area. This will be closer to Orchard Road than Jurong East. However this is a joint project for the benefit of both countries and hence there has to be give and take,” he said.
Last month, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak announced that Singapore’s terminus would be in Jurong East after their annual retreat.
MOT said both countries are also in discussions over the HSR’s commercial and operating models.
Singapore has proposed that the domestic transit HSR service, which will stop at the six stations in between Singapore and KL, be operated separately from the express non-stop HSR services between KL and Singapore, MOT said. This will give Malaysia autonomy over the domestic transit services to serve its domestic needs, it added.
The remains of Tanjong Katong Primary School (TKPS) teacher Mohammad Ghazi Mohamed and student Navdeep Singh Jaryal Raj Kumar — the last of the 10 from Singapore who died in the Sabah earthquake to be identified — were flown home yesterday.
Although their remains were identified last week, further DNA tests prevented an earlier return. The 10 were on a trip to Mount Kinabalu when an earthquake struck on June 5.
A funeral was held yesterday for Ghazi at Kampung Siglap Mosque, attended by a large crowd that included Ghazi’s family, friends, colleagues and students. At one point, mourners had to queue to enter the auditorium where his casket was held. Inside the auditorium, a bouquet of white flowers lay on top of Ghazi’s casket. Mourners surrounded the casket, many of them silent in prayer.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the funeral, Education Minister Heng Swee Keat said: “I thank the Malaysian authorities for expediting the work to allow us to bring the bodies of Ghazi and Navdeep earlier than we had expected.”
Among the mourners was TKPS student Isaac Lee, one of Ghazi’s former students. The Primary 3 student said he always looked forward to Ghazi’s physical education classes, describing them as really fun.
A friend of Ghazi, who declined to be named, said the teacher’s passing was “a huge loss to the school”. “There’s hardly anything negative to say about him,” he said. “He was a true, loyal friend who helped you when you were in need.”
Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim, who also attended the funeral, was one of the pallbearers who helped carry Ghazi’s casket into the van that brought the body to Pusara Aman Muslim Cemetery in Lim Chu Kang for burial.
Holding back tears as he spoke to the media, Dr Yaacob, who is also Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs, said: “(He was) such a young man whom (according to) the stories you hear was selfless, very dedicated.”
He added: “I suppose the most important thing for us is … to perhaps take his spirit forward. The things that he has done for his schoolkids, for his family — you must find some way to (let his legacy live on).”
Speaking after the burial, Mr Mohd Faizal, one of Ghazi’s colleagues from TKPS, said Ghazi, who leaves behind a wife and three children, was “happy-go-lucky”.
“I never saw him under stress, and it rubbed off on all of us,” said Mr Faizal, 28. “I have lost an elder brother. He was more than a colleague, and that will never change.”
Mr Heng said support would continue to be provided to the family members and students affected by the earthquake. “Our students in Tanjong Katong Primary School are recovering well. They are doing fine, and the principal and school leaders have put up a plan to bring them back to school when school reopens so that they can continue with a normal routine,” he said.
MACHANG: The authorities did not rule out any possibilities of Malaysian students in the Middle East participating in the militant group, Islamic State (IS) in Syria during their semester breaks.
Bukit Aman Special Branch Counter Terrorism Division, Assistant Director, Datuk Ayub Khan Mydin Pitchay said, it is difficult to monitor the activities of students outside the country especially those who are not registered with the Malaysian Embassy there.
“There are only some of our students abroad who are registered with our embassy. This group is easy to be monitored by us.
“Others who are not registered took the trouble to go on their own. This group is beyond our control. We do not have any ability to control them.
“Maybe they utilise the semester breaks to participate in the militant group operations in Syria,” Ayub Khan said when met after the safety and threat of the IS group talk in UiTM Machang campus Monday.
He added that similar modus operandi is employed by Malaysian students in Pakistan, taking advantage of the university’s semester breaks to participate in the activities of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Touching on the threats of IS in Malaysia, Ayub Khan said that for now, his team is actively monitoring the group to ensure that the threat is combated and does not become widespread among the public.
However, he did not rule out the increasing severity of threats by the global militant IS group and more stringent controls are needed to prevent the people of this country from being influenced by these extremist groups’ doctrines.
Currently, 11 Malaysians known to be advocating the militant group’s cause have been confirmed killed in Syria and Iraq. It was reported that five were killed in war while another six died as suicide bombers.
I was coming out of my grandma house in West Coast Road at around 3pm when I saw two JC students heavy petting one another on the staircase landing of the opposite HDB block.
Yes it is ok for couples to hug and kiss but they were petting one another so much that I was quite disturbed and annoyed by their actions. When I returned an hour later, they were still at it and are oblivious to their surrounding.
When the male student finally realised that they had been spotted, he hurriedly help the girl put on her blouse and ran away.
