Violence against girlfriends lands two men in jail

SARIKEI: Two men are cooling it off in jail for physical abuse against their girlfriends in two unrelated cases here.

In the first case, a 40-year- old man was charged with assaulting his 28-year- old girlfriend for disobeying his order for her to not wear a white dress.

Sarikei district police chief Supt Mat Jusoh Muhamad said the woman, who works as a shop assistant had lodged a report at the police station here around 7.20pm on Monday claiming that around 4.45pm that day, she was kicked in the back and punched on the forehead by a man whom she had befriended lately.

Acting on the report, the police arrested the suspect, who works as a labourer, the next day to facilitate investigation.

The suspect was charged in the Magistrate’s court here with voluntarily causing hurt under Section 323 of the Penal Code on Tuesday.

Magistrate Maris Agan handed the accused a fine of RM1,500, in default of eight months’ imprisonment, after he pleaded guilty to the charge.

He was ordered to serve the custodial sentence as he could not pay the fine.

According to the brief facts of the case read out by prosecuting officer Inspector Anbarasu Gobi, the accused went to the complainant’s rented room along Jalan Abdul Rahman here and assaulted the victim for wearing a white dress.

The same court yesterday meted out a similar sentence to a 25year- old man who pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend in an unrelated case.

According to the facts of the case, the accused beat and strangled a 26-year old woman outside a rented room on the second floor of a shop lot along Lane 2, Wharf Road here last Saturday night.

The accused, who also could not pay the RM1,500 fine, had to serve the eight-month jail sentence.