Man jailed 8 weeks for beating wife. She refuses to talk about it, says... 'It will make my heart more PAIN'

By Tan Mae Lynn
December 11, 2007

SHE nagged her young husband about a supposed extra-marital affair.


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He responded by taking out a kitchen knife, held it to her neck and threatened her.

The torment didn't end there.

Several days later, he beat her up. It wasn't the first time he had hit her.

In July 2005, the woman eventually called the police for help.

In October this year, Asghar Ali Ghulam Rasool, 34, was sentenced to eight weeks' jail for criminal intimidation and voluntarily causing hurt to his 53-year-old wife.

Another charge of voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means was taken into consideration.

He filed an appeal against the sentence, but the appeal was dismissed on 27 Nov.

Asghar, a Pakistani, and Madam Farzanah Abdul were divorced last December.

They have a 12-year-old son.

When The New Paper visited her at her flat in the east, the petite woman did not want to speak about her ex-husband and the abuse.

She would only say: 'I don't want to talk about it anymore. I want to close the book and move forward and bring up my son to be a good person.'

Her voice quivering and eyes watering, she added: 'If I talk about it, I will remember it. I can still remember when he hit me, I don't want... It will only make my heart more pain.'

Investigations showed that in April 2005, Madam Farzanah confided in her husband's colleague about their marriage.

She felt that Asghar did not fulfil his responsibilities to the family and did not communicate much with her.

The following morning, her husband confronted her while she was in the kitchen and scolded her for speaking to his colleague about their relationship.

He then took out a kitchen knife and said to Madam Farzanah, 'Today the three of us die better'.

Asghar pushed Madam Farzanah into the bedroom. He forced her to sit on a chair and then put the kitchen knife against the right side of her neck.

Scared for her life, she kept still and quiet.

Somehow, she managed to escape unharmed. Madam Farzanah declined to elaborate on how she did this.

But on 4 May 2005, the couple had another heated argument.

Asghar accused Madam Farzanah of harassing a female friend of his by making calls to the other woman.

Unhappy with her husband, Madam Farzanah then questioned him and asked if he was having an affair with the woman.

But the question set him off.

He was so enraged he punched his wife twice on the right side of her face causing her to fall to the floor.

When she tried to get up, he kicked and punched her.

KEPT MUM
Despite the beating, she kept mum about the abuse and bore with the injuries that caused her physical pain for two months.

Then, she finally decided to report the abuse to the police.

In his mitigation, Asghar said he committed the offences because his wife nagged him about an alleged extra-marital affair.

In passing sentence, District Judge Siva Shanmugam said: 'The factual matrix of the present case disclosed numerous aggravating circumstances. The accused had threatened the victim at her very own home.

'The matter was further exacerbated by the use of a kitchen knife as a weapon.'

However, the judge added: 'The Court accepted that it would be unlikely for (Asghar) to repeat these offences as the parties had since divorced and gone their separate ways.'

Asghar could have been jailed up to three years and fined for his offences.