Mother of policeman’s wife who starved & tortured maid to death also pleads guilty to assault

The mother of a woman sentenced to 30 years in jail for starving and torturing a domestic helper to death also pleaded guilty to 48 charges, mostly of voluntarily causing hurt to a maid, on Monday (Nov 22).

Prema S Naraynasamy, 64, along with her daughter Gaiyathiri Murugayan, had abused 24-year-old Piang Ngaih Don, who died on July 26, 2016. Prema was found to have abused the helper in the following ways: kicking, punching and slapping her, pouring water on her, pulling her up by her hair and “spinning” her head violently, and grabbing her by her neck, CNA reported.

The older woman was also found to have hit Ms Phiang with various objects and watched while the helper was in the toilet. While Prema lived in her own home, she stayed with Gaiyathiri thrice a week and participated in the abuse of Ms Piang. Both mother and daughter were arrested following Ms Piang’s death. She had been beaten and starved to the point of being only 24 kilograms at the time of her death.

The court heard last year that Gaiyathiri physically assaulted Ms Piang almost daily over 10 months and treated her inhumanely. In the last 12 days of her life, Ms Piang, who left behind a young son back in Myanmar, was tied to the window grille at night while she slept on the floor.

Gaiyathiri, whose murder charge had been reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder due to her mental disorders, was sentenced to 30 years in jail by the High Court on June 22 of last year.

Her cruel treatment of the maid was caught on the family’s CCTV cameras, footage of which was played in court.

Netizens commenting on the news concerning Prema’s guilty plea condemned her acts as “inhuman.”

/TISG

HOME decries “horrific, dehumanising, and abhorrent” abuse of Myanmar maid