Indian man on trial in S'pore for attempted murder of nurse

A 33-year-old Indian man is facing attempted murder charges in a Singapore court for brutally stabbing a nursing student after her parents rejected his marriage proposal.
Varadharajan Mahadevan, who went on trial today, became "obsessed" with the girl and "aggressively harassed" her even though she made it clear that she was not interested, prosecutors said at the opening of the trial.
The two met at the National University Hospital (NUH) of Singapore where the accused worked as a healthcare assistant and the the 23-year-old victim was a student nurse, reported Channel News Asia.
The High Court heard that on December 19, 2013, Varadharajan became angry and violent when the woman's parents rejected his marriage proposal.

They called police when Varadharajan turned abusive and aggressive, hurling vulgarities at them and banging on the gates of the family's apartment, wanting to be let in.
"Varadharajan eventually left, but returned later with a knife hidden in his sock. He spent the night at the void deck of the woman's apartment block and lay in wait for her," prosecutors said.

Next day in the morning, Varadharajan confronted the victim as she exited the lift at the void deck while she was on her way to school.
When she refused to comply with his demands, he "viciously" stabbed and slashed her, prosecutors said.

The victim's parents, who heard her screams all the way up in their eighth-storey apartment, rushed to her aid and the woman's father pushed Varadharajan off his daughter.
Varadharajan fled the scene after dropping the knife, but was arrested with the help of two passers-by who held him.
The victim suffered 21 knife wounds on her head, neck, chest, abdomen and limbs, including a deep cut to her neck, prosecutors said.
The woman spent 49 days in hospital, and years on, her recovery is far from over, her parents testified.
Both the victim's parents broke down on the stand today as they recalled the day their daughter was almost killed.

The father described finding Varadharajan sitting on his daughter's chest, the knife poised and ready to strike. "My main (thought) was to save my daughter," the 59-year-old said.
In three separate statements to police, Varadharajan had said he intended to kill the victim, but he now disputes this.
"I had no intention to kill her," Varadharajan said at the opening of his trial.
He claims the victim was his former girlfriend, and that he had "inflicted wounds on her" when he was "attempting suicide". "I realise my mistake," Varadharajan told the court through a Tamil interpreter.
His lawyer Rengarajoo Rengasamy Balasamy told the court that the victim was in an intimate relationship with Varadharajan and had been "pestering" him to take her back to India to get married.