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.
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