01 Jul 2007, New paper
Man floods her with SMSes: Says he'll use acid, black magic Sends her obituary and threatens to kill her
By Tay Shi'an
HE seemed like a regular customer, with four young nieces and nephews in tow.
So Rani, a sales executive for children's books and encyclopaedias, had no qualms giving out her namecard - which had her handphone number on it - to this man.
But that encounter at a temporary sales booth near an MRT station soon turned into a nightmare, with the man pursuing her relentlessly after that.
Rani (not her real name) asked not to be identified.
The man, Ganesh Eyamalai, 29, was sentenced to two months' jail in May for sending death threats via SMS (See report below).
Recounting how it began, Rani, 28, said she was nice and polite to Ganesh because he was a potential customer then. That was in Oct 2005.
But he had apparently mistaken her friendliness for interest in him.
So he started to aggressively court her.
TURNING NASTY
And when she tried to rebuff his advances and avoid him, the man turned nasty. He began to stalk her and harass her family.
Over a six-month period, he sent her hundreds of SMS messages, threatening to harm her if his love was not returned.
In one of the messages on 19 Jun last year, he said he was even willing to commit murder and go to the gallows if he could not have her.
'Once 4 all kill U and go to hang,' he wrote.
He also threatened to slash her and throw acid on her face, and to curse her by performing 'black magic' on her.
When she changed her contact number, he somehow found her home address, and started sending creepy letters, including a handmade obituary with her name, date of birth and her 'death date' on it.
The final straw came when Ganesh showed up at the family's home in Woodlands, and threw glass bottles at the door.
BEHIND BARS
The family called the police and Ganesh was arrested in 16 Oct.
Rani said: 'I'm relieved he's behind bars, but it's only three months, after all that he has done and the psychological stress my family went through.
'I felt so bad for my family, especially the children (two nieces). They suffered because of me.'
Rani said she remembered giving Ganesh a short presentation on books at a sales booth near Choa Chu Kang MRT station, and giving him her namecard. 'He was just a normal customer,' she said.
Then out of the blue, he started to call her persistently from Dec 2005.
She said: 'He started calling many times a day. His conversations were very mundane, like, 'How's your work?' and 'What are you doing?'
Rani, who had a boyfriend at that time and had just started a full-time degree course, suspected that the man wanted more than just a casual relationship.
By June 2006, Ganesh was calling and messaging her 20 to 30 times a day, she said. She tried to avoid him by saying she was busy.
But he made her feel guilty, she claimed. 'He told me, 'You think you're very high class, very educated. I'm uneducated, so you treat me like this.'
'I felt bad, so I said okay (to meeting him).'
The two met about three times over two weeks in June 2006, at MRT stations or rain shelters, to talk.
That was when she found out that the man, who was doing odd-jobs, had a darksecret.
'He told me he was wanted by the police and had been running away for three years.
'He also told me he loved me.
'During the last meeting, he told me that if I ever stopped talking to him, or left him to marry another guy, he might as well kill me, then go to jail.
'After he said that, I didn't dare to see him anymore. No one has ever told me anything like that before.'
Scared, she made the first of many police reports on 20 Jun.
According to court papers, Rani had made the report because she 'felt frightened that the accused would carry out his threats to kill her'.
Ganesh became infuriated when he learnt that she had gone to the cops. And the harassment escalated.
Rani received hundreds of missed calls and SMS messages from him, many in the wee hours of the morning.
She showed The New Paper on Sunday 225 SMS messages from him that she had saved as evidence on her phone. All were sent within one month.
She said there were more, but she had deleted many of them.
In the messages, he swung from begging her to return to him to verbally abusing her and threatening to harm and even kill her.
For example, on 10 Jul at 11.52pm, he messaged: 'She is my life. i yearn 4 her. pls. i want her. i would die (sic)'
Less than one-and-a-half hours later, at 1.10am, he texted her: 'i waiting to collect ur ashes.'
Rani's boyfriend, 24, a customer service sales agent, said he tried to call Ganesh to get him to stop disturbing her.
He said: 'He (Ganesh) got very agitated... he kept saying I was the hindrance between them, which was not true. It was very stressful.'
MOVED OUT
Afraid that Ganesh would harm her, Rani moved out of her home in June last year to stay with a friend, but he continued to harass her family.
At one stage, she also got her brother-in-law, a 27-year-old technician, to confront him over the phone.
But Ganesh started to verbally abuse and threaten her brother-in-law and other family members in his calls and messages.
Then on 8 Oct, Ganesh showed up at 2am at Rani's home, where her mother and her younger sister's family live.
He started throwing glass beer bottles against the door and walls of the corridorunit.
The sound of smashing glass woke up Rani's two nieces, who were then 3 months old and 2 years old. They were terrified.
Rani's sister, a 25-year-old teacher, recalled: 'My husband wanted to open the door, but I stopped him... We didn't know how many people were outside, and we had children at home.'
The family called the police, and the culprit fled the scene.
The saga finally ended when Ganesh was arrested eight days later on 16 Oct.
He was charged in court later that month, and sentenced on 30 May this year, after he admitted to sending Rani the threatening SMS message with the intent to put her in fear.
The family hopes they can now put the episode behind.
Of her so-called 'relationship' with Ganesh, Rani said exasperatedly: 'I had never been to his house, never seen any family members or friends.
'Till today, I don't even know his full name.'
--------------------------------
Stalker jailed for criminal intimidation
GANESH was arrested on 16 Oct last year, and charged with committing a rash act to endanger the safety of others.
According to court papers, he sent Rani an SMS message on 19 Jun last year with the intention of causing her alarm.
He pleaded guilty to criminal intimidation by threatening to cause death to her.
Court papers revealed that on 22 Jun last year, at about 11.15pm, Ganesh also threatened to cause grievous hurt to Rani by telling her that he would 'slash and throw acid on her face'.
Then, on 10 Jul, at about midnight, he threatened her that he would get a man to go to Indonesia to use black magic to harm her.
Ganesh also pleaded guilty to impersonating another man while making a police statement in March 2003.
He was sentenced to three months' jail.
Four other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
Three of them were counts of criminal intimidation.
Man floods her with SMSes: Says he'll use acid, black magic Sends her obituary and threatens to kill her
By Tay Shi'an
HE seemed like a regular customer, with four young nieces and nephews in tow.
So Rani, a sales executive for children's books and encyclopaedias, had no qualms giving out her namecard - which had her handphone number on it - to this man.
But that encounter at a temporary sales booth near an MRT station soon turned into a nightmare, with the man pursuing her relentlessly after that.
Rani (not her real name) asked not to be identified.
The man, Ganesh Eyamalai, 29, was sentenced to two months' jail in May for sending death threats via SMS (See report below).
Recounting how it began, Rani, 28, said she was nice and polite to Ganesh because he was a potential customer then. That was in Oct 2005.
But he had apparently mistaken her friendliness for interest in him.
So he started to aggressively court her.
TURNING NASTY
And when she tried to rebuff his advances and avoid him, the man turned nasty. He began to stalk her and harass her family.
Over a six-month period, he sent her hundreds of SMS messages, threatening to harm her if his love was not returned.
In one of the messages on 19 Jun last year, he said he was even willing to commit murder and go to the gallows if he could not have her.
'Once 4 all kill U and go to hang,' he wrote.
He also threatened to slash her and throw acid on her face, and to curse her by performing 'black magic' on her.
When she changed her contact number, he somehow found her home address, and started sending creepy letters, including a handmade obituary with her name, date of birth and her 'death date' on it.
The final straw came when Ganesh showed up at the family's home in Woodlands, and threw glass bottles at the door.
BEHIND BARS
The family called the police and Ganesh was arrested in 16 Oct.
Rani said: 'I'm relieved he's behind bars, but it's only three months, after all that he has done and the psychological stress my family went through.
'I felt so bad for my family, especially the children (two nieces). They suffered because of me.'
Rani said she remembered giving Ganesh a short presentation on books at a sales booth near Choa Chu Kang MRT station, and giving him her namecard. 'He was just a normal customer,' she said.
Then out of the blue, he started to call her persistently from Dec 2005.
She said: 'He started calling many times a day. His conversations were very mundane, like, 'How's your work?' and 'What are you doing?'
Rani, who had a boyfriend at that time and had just started a full-time degree course, suspected that the man wanted more than just a casual relationship.
By June 2006, Ganesh was calling and messaging her 20 to 30 times a day, she said. She tried to avoid him by saying she was busy.
But he made her feel guilty, she claimed. 'He told me, 'You think you're very high class, very educated. I'm uneducated, so you treat me like this.'
'I felt bad, so I said okay (to meeting him).'
The two met about three times over two weeks in June 2006, at MRT stations or rain shelters, to talk.
That was when she found out that the man, who was doing odd-jobs, had a darksecret.
'He told me he was wanted by the police and had been running away for three years.
'He also told me he loved me.
'During the last meeting, he told me that if I ever stopped talking to him, or left him to marry another guy, he might as well kill me, then go to jail.
'After he said that, I didn't dare to see him anymore. No one has ever told me anything like that before.'
Scared, she made the first of many police reports on 20 Jun.
According to court papers, Rani had made the report because she 'felt frightened that the accused would carry out his threats to kill her'.
Ganesh became infuriated when he learnt that she had gone to the cops. And the harassment escalated.
Rani received hundreds of missed calls and SMS messages from him, many in the wee hours of the morning.
She showed The New Paper on Sunday 225 SMS messages from him that she had saved as evidence on her phone. All were sent within one month.
She said there were more, but she had deleted many of them.
In the messages, he swung from begging her to return to him to verbally abusing her and threatening to harm and even kill her.
For example, on 10 Jul at 11.52pm, he messaged: 'She is my life. i yearn 4 her. pls. i want her. i would die (sic)'
Less than one-and-a-half hours later, at 1.10am, he texted her: 'i waiting to collect ur ashes.'
Rani's boyfriend, 24, a customer service sales agent, said he tried to call Ganesh to get him to stop disturbing her.
He said: 'He (Ganesh) got very agitated... he kept saying I was the hindrance between them, which was not true. It was very stressful.'
MOVED OUT
Afraid that Ganesh would harm her, Rani moved out of her home in June last year to stay with a friend, but he continued to harass her family.
At one stage, she also got her brother-in-law, a 27-year-old technician, to confront him over the phone.
But Ganesh started to verbally abuse and threaten her brother-in-law and other family members in his calls and messages.
Then on 8 Oct, Ganesh showed up at 2am at Rani's home, where her mother and her younger sister's family live.
He started throwing glass beer bottles against the door and walls of the corridorunit.
The sound of smashing glass woke up Rani's two nieces, who were then 3 months old and 2 years old. They were terrified.
Rani's sister, a 25-year-old teacher, recalled: 'My husband wanted to open the door, but I stopped him... We didn't know how many people were outside, and we had children at home.'
The family called the police, and the culprit fled the scene.
The saga finally ended when Ganesh was arrested eight days later on 16 Oct.
He was charged in court later that month, and sentenced on 30 May this year, after he admitted to sending Rani the threatening SMS message with the intent to put her in fear.
The family hopes they can now put the episode behind.
Of her so-called 'relationship' with Ganesh, Rani said exasperatedly: 'I had never been to his house, never seen any family members or friends.
'Till today, I don't even know his full name.'
--------------------------------
Stalker jailed for criminal intimidation
GANESH was arrested on 16 Oct last year, and charged with committing a rash act to endanger the safety of others.
According to court papers, he sent Rani an SMS message on 19 Jun last year with the intention of causing her alarm.
He pleaded guilty to criminal intimidation by threatening to cause death to her.
Court papers revealed that on 22 Jun last year, at about 11.15pm, Ganesh also threatened to cause grievous hurt to Rani by telling her that he would 'slash and throw acid on her face'.
Then, on 10 Jul, at about midnight, he threatened her that he would get a man to go to Indonesia to use black magic to harm her.
Ganesh also pleaded guilty to impersonating another man while making a police statement in March 2003.
He was sentenced to three months' jail.
Four other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
Three of them were counts of criminal intimidation.
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