Indian pleads guilty to amended charge in Singapore riot case

SINGAPORE: An Indian man today pleaded guilty to an amended charge of failing to disperse on police orders, becoming the first of the 25 Indians being charged for Singapore's worst riot in 40 years.

Chinnappa Vijayaragunatha Poopathi, 32, is expected to be sentenced on Monday, the Straits Times reported today.

For joining or continuing in an assembly after it had been ordered to disperse, Chinnappa may be jailed for up to two years and/or fined.

He was initially charged for rioting and faced maximum jail sentence of seven years and caning on conviction.

The December 8, 2013 riot left 49 police officers injured and 23 emergency vehicles damaged, of which five were burnt, in the worst outbreak of violence Singapore has seen in the last four decades.

Some 400 migrant workers from South Asia rioted when an Indian man was killed in a bus accident in the Little India precinct of Singapore.

The Little India area is largely made up of Indian origin businesses, eateries and pubs where migrant workers from South Asia spend their day off.