An Indian national in Singapore was sentenced to seven months in prison on Tuesday for kissing a 15-year-old girl and forcing her to perform a sex act on him, according to a media report. Chellam Rajesh Kannan, 26, who met the girl, on Instagram, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a young person. Another two charges, including wrongful restraint, were taken into consideration for sentencing.
As per a PTI report, the court heard that Chellam approached the girl, now aged 16, on Instagram sometime last year and sent a request to follow her account. They began messaging each other on the platform with Chellam, who is married and has a young daughter, knowing she was a minor.
In mitigation, Chellam said he felt “very remorseful and shameful” and had not committed any other offences in the past three years of working in Singapore.
He was previously a safety coordinator. “I have gone through lots of suffering in this case. I lost my job, I miss my family, my wife and (two-year-old) daughter… Mine is a love marriage and my wife is on her own,” Chellam was quoted as saying by the TODAY newspaper.
District Judge Shawn Ho said that a stiff sentence was warranted as Chellam had exerted “pressure and coercion” on the victim.
The sentence was backdated to his date of remand, 18 August this year.
WITH AGENCY INPUTS
Indian Army's "Daredevils" set a world record by forming the highest human pyramid on moving…
In a rarest of rare case, the Additional District Sessions Court in Thiruvananthapuram has sentenced…
Trump will use two Bibles at his swearing-in, one from Lincoln's 1861 oath and another…
Elon Musk praised Trump for not banning TikTok, arguing it would go against freedom of…
Three Israeli women, held captive by Hamas for 471 days, have returned home following a…
Sanjay Roy, convicted of raping and murdering a doctor at RG Kar Medical College, was…