The Kallang Slashings and the Murder of Shanmuganathan Dillidurai

A planned robbery spree

On the night of May 29, 2010, Micheal Anak Garing, Tony Anak Imba, Hairee Anak Landak and Donny Anak Meluda left a friend's home with a plan to commit robbery. Singapore's Court of Appeal later described the four men collectively as a gang and recorded that one of them was carrying a parang.

Over the course of the night and the early hours of May 30, the group attacked several people in and around central Singapore. Sandeep Singh, Ang Jun Heng and Egan Karuppaiah survived separate attacks. The same sequence culminated in the attack on Shanmuganathan Dillidurai, a 41-year-old construction worker from India who was cycling along Kallang Road.

The death of Shanmuganathan Dillidurai

Shanmuganathan was robbed and fatally assaulted. The High Court found that Micheal was the person who used the parang and concluded that the prosecution had proved the murder charge against both Micheal and Tony under Singapore's common-intention doctrine.

The court record also connected the fatal attack to the three earlier robberies through witness testimony, forensic evidence and the repeated pattern of the gang's conduct. Those earlier attacks were not converted into separate murder pages on Crime by Region because they formed part of the same documented spree and criminal investigation.

Murder convictions and sentencing

In January 2014, the High Court convicted Micheal Anak Garing and Tony Anak Imba of Shanmuganathan's murder. Sentencing was dealt with separately after Singapore's changes to the mandatory death-penalty framework.

In April 2015, Micheal was sentenced to death. Tony received life imprisonment and caning. The sentencing court distinguished their culpability, including Micheal's direct use of the weapon and Tony's role in the common criminal enterprise.

The Court of Appeal

On February 27, 2017, Singapore's Court of Appeal dismissed Micheal's appeal against his death sentence. It also dismissed the prosecution's appeal seeking the death penalty for Tony. The murder convictions therefore remained in place, with Micheal sentenced to death and Tony to life imprisonment with caning.

Micheal was executed at Changi Prison on March 22, 2019. That later development did not alter the legal status of Tony or the separate outcomes for the other two gang members.

Hairee Landak and Donny Meluda

Hairee and Donny were not presented by the courts as having the same murder-conviction outcome as Micheal and Tony. They were dealt with through separate proceedings arising from the robbery spree.

Donny fled Singapore after the offences and was arrested in Malaysia in 2017. In November 2018, after pleading guilty to armed-robbery charges involving grievous hurt, he was sentenced to 33 years in prison and 24 strokes of the cane. Contemporary reporting recorded that Hairee had received the same overall sentence on related charges. Crime by Region therefore distinguishes those convictions from the murder convictions entered against Micheal and Tony.

Current status

This case is classified as Solved / Adjudicated. The murder of Shanmuganathan Dillidurai resulted in final murder convictions for Micheal Anak Garing and Tony Anak Imba, and the connected robbery spree produced separate convictions for the other gang members. The surviving victims are identified as victims of the same criminal episode, not as separate case-count entries.