On 23 October 2016, a five-year-old boy was pronounced dead at a children's hospital in Singapore. He was found to have been a victim of child abuse by his parents Azlin binte Arujunah and Ridzuan bin Mega Abdul Rahman for months leading up to his death. This involved both Azlin and Ridzuan using boiling hot water to scald the boy on several occasions, inflicting severe burns and scald injuries which caused the boy to die in hospital weeks after the first of the four scalding incidents. The couple was later arrested and charged with murder. To protect his surviving siblings' identities and their privacy, the boy was not named in the media.
Known to be one of the worst child abuse cases in Singapore, the case made headlines and the boy's parents gained notoriety for severely abusing their son, who was said to be kept in a cat cage in their Toa Payoh home. Subsequently, in 2020, the murder charges were reduced to voluntarily causing grievous harm and the couple were sentenced to 27 years in jail each for the offences, with Ridzuan receiving 24 strokes of the cane and Azlin to serve an additional year in prison in lieu of caning. Upon the prosecution's appeal however, Azlin was convicted of murder while Ridzuan's sentence was increased to life imprisonment in July 2022. Three months later, Azlin was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Court of Appeal on 18 October 2022, despite the prosecution's urgings for the death penalty on Azlin.
The boy's abuse and death
Born in January 2011 to Ridzuan bin Mega Abdul Rahman and Azlin binte Arujunah, the boy, who was the youngest of the couple's six children, was adopted by Azlin's close friend Zufarina bte Abdul Hamid in March 2011 because the couple were unable to take care of him given their unemployment. The boy's name was not revealed due to his age and to protect the identity of his siblings.
For the next four years, Zufarina deeply cared for the boy, treating him like a son and the boy also regarded her as a mother. It was in May 2015 when the boy was returned to his parents, after Zufarina was unable to make childcare and schooling arrangements for the boy near her home, given there was no parental consent. The boy then lived in his parents' Toa Payoh rental flat with not just his parents, but three of his siblings – an older brother and two older sisters. While the abuse did not start immediately after the boy returned to his biological family, it began only thirteen months later in June 2016.
The abuse was carried out in various ways, mostly physically and psychologically. The ill-treatment of the child by both Ridzuan and Azlin was revealed in some details. Often, the couple would hit him with a broom or hanger, or with their bare hands. They also used pliers to pinch him on the thighs and buttocks. The most notable abusive practice was the couple frequently locking the boy inside a small cat cage meant for the family's pet cat.
Sometime in August 2016, Azlin used a broom to whack her son after suspecting that the boy had toppled a biscuit tin, which spilled the biscuits on the kitchen floor. Her beating left marks on his stomach and caused the boy to develop a limp and a misaligned kneecap. Ridzuan, on another occasion, allegedly used a lit cigarette to scatter hot burning ash onto his son's arms when he refused to answer him, and he also used a heated spoon to burn the child's palm to punish the boy for stealing milk powder to eat.
Death
In mid and late-October 2016, the boy was subjected to four incidents of abuse by scalding. The incidents would culminate in the boy's death on 22 October 2016.
Between 15 and 17 October 2016, Azlin allegedly grabbed the boy by his ankle to prevent him from running away, then poured boiling hot water over both his right leg and hand, and over his arm and chest. As a result, he was limping and in pain, and sustained both blisters and peeling skin in the burned areas. On another occasion, Azlin once again splashed hot water on him, and the boy, in a moment of anger, shouted at his mother in Malay, "kau gila ke apa?", which means "are you crazy or what?". The boy's outburst only provoked the couple into throwing more cups of boiling water onto the boy.
At around noon on 22 October 2016, both Azlin and Ridzuan initiated their fourth and final scalding incident. At that time, the boy, who was confined in the cat cage, was asked out for a bath by his mother but he refused to remove his shorts, hence she woke her husband up to punish the boy. First, Ridzuan hit the boy on his head, hands and legs with a broom, but the boy continued to refuse to remove his shorts. For this, Ridzuan took several cups of hot water and threw them at the boy, despite the child's pleas in Malay to not get scalded. After the scalding, the boy crouched down in the toilet, and Ridzuan continued to pour hot water over his back and calf before stopping.
After this, the boy fell forward onto the bathroom floor and stopped moving, having lost consciousness. This time, the scalding proved fatal. The boy was left on the toilet floor for six hours before his parents finally took him to hospital. The boy was pronounced dead a day later in KK Women's and Children's Hospital from his scald injuries.
Perpetrators Ridzuan bin Mega Abdul Rahman
Ridzuan bin Mega Abdul Rahman, the younger of two children and the only son of his family, was born in Singapore in 1992, sometime between May and July. He has an elder sister Norhafizah, who was eight years his senior.
According to news reports and testimonies of Ridzuan and his family, Ridzuan came from a dysfunctional family background. While nothing is known about his father, Ridzuan grew up without his mother, who often faced legal problems with the authorities for drug related offences, and instead, his maternal aunt Kasmah binte Latiff would be the one to care for him. Ridzuan was only together with his sister for the first two years of his life; both siblings lived apart from each other for the next fourteen years. Still, Ridzuan was the favourite grandchild of his grandmother, who reportedly pampered him and would give him anything he needed.
In his childhood, Ridzuan was said to be a difficult child to raise and understand. His grandmother considered him crazy and his uncles felt he was difficult to understand due to him being quick in his speech and his sentences did not flow. Ridzuan also did not perform well in school, as he often failed his subjects in his primary school. Often, he was said to be glad when he got zero for his tests and exams. The absence of his mother and the lack of supervision from his grandmother may have contributed to his low academic performance in school.
Ridzuan, who was sorted into the EM3 stream as a result of his grades, also did not have initiative to manage his school work and expected his aunt to do it for him. He even skipped classes and school and went out to play, and he always would use his stationery to abuse his aunt if she did not help him do his homework. When he grew older, if his aunt refused him money, Ridzuan would hit her, punch the wall, raise his voice or throw things. Ridzuan was also said to have low intellect, and was addicted to drugs during his teenage years. He even spent time in a boys' home until his release at age 16. He went to live with his sister afterwards, thus reuniting with her for the first time, and lived with their stepfather, mother, and his sister's five children. Later, the family took Azlin in and their expenses were handled by Ridzuan's sister since they were both underage.
During the two to three years he spent in his sister's home, Ridzuan continued to display an ill-temper. Twice, he had flared up and assaulted his sister's two ex-boyfriends when he intervened during arguments between them and his sister. He tried to attack a man at a hawker centre for accidentally bumping into his shoulder. He also assaulted his mother's friend in the eye until it bled due to the friend causing his mother to go to jail.
The worst of these ill-tempered moments were when Ridzuan, who by then was married to Azlin, actually strangled his sister Norhafizah when she accidentally kicked her foot at the then pregnant Azlin. Norhafizah was also four to five months pregnant during the strangling incident. He himself also kicked Azlin's pregnant belly at a moment of anger during his marriage and abuse of Azlin. Despite these flaws, Ridzuan did not go as far as venting his anger on his nephews and nieces. He was also unfaithful to his wife at one point as he engaged in an affair with another woman. Due to Norhafizah being unable to get along with Azlin, the couple moved out and rented a one-room flat in Toa Payoh.
Up until his arrest, Ridzuan made a living by selling various items on an e-marketplace known as Carousell, which included amulets, "love potions" and old currencies; other than that, he and Azlin relied on financial assistance schemes by the government to sustain their living.
Azlin binte Arujunah
Azlin binte Arujunah, a Singaporean born in April 1992, was the wife of Ridzuan. Azlin did not have a happy childhood and was abused by her parents. Her father was a drug addict and had spent time in prison, and her mother neglected her, which led to Azlin leaving her parents at age 4 or 5 to live with her grandparents. Her paternal uncle and aunt both took care of her, and Azlin shared a close bond with her grandmother, who was the only one who showed her compassion and love. It can be presumed that she became addicted to drug abuse during her teenage years. Other details of her life were not covered in specific, thorough detail like her husband.
During her young adulthood, Azlin met Ridzuan, who was the same age as her, and they lived together in Norhafizah's flat after Ridzuan was released from the boys' home. Azlin then became married to Ridzuan during the period, and Azlin was a victim of spousal abuse by Ridzuan, as well as her husband's unfaithfulness. She also continued to abuse methamphetamine during her marriage. Her grandmother died in March 2016, and it affected her; the death of her mother, with whom she just reconciled, in June 2016 aggravated her depressed mood.
After she gave birth to her youngest son, Azlin entrusted the child to the care of her close friend Zufarina Abdul Hamid, who would take care of the child for four years before returning him to Azlin, which led to the child's abuse and death.
Murder trial and sentencing Arrest and proceedings The case was subsequently reported to the police by the hospital authorities. Ridzuan bin Mega Abdul Rahman was first arrested on 26 October 2016, and charged with voluntarily causing grievous hurt by using hot water to scald the boy. His wife, Azlin binte Arujunah, was later arrested and charged with murder the following day. If found guilty under Singapore law, Azlin would be sentenced to death (if the murder was of first degree), or alternatively to the minimum punishment of life imprisonment (if it was of second, third or fourth degree). Subsequently, Ridzuan's charge was increased to murder, and he thus also potentially faced the death penalty; he was also liable to caning up to 24 strokes should he be sentenced to life instead of death since he was male unlike Azlin.