News

Man Sentenced to 10 Weeks in Jail for Skipping NS for 6 Years

2021-08-13 , 11:52 am

If there’s one thing as sure as death and taxes in Singapore, there’s this – If you are a male Singaporean or Second-Generation Permanent Resident, and you defaulted on your National Service (NS) order, you’d best be prepared to face the consequences.

After all, it’s all about our country’s national security and it’s not something our gahmen takes lightly.

Living in Malaysia After Parents Divorced at 13 YO

The man involved in this case, 24-year-old Sa Li En, was born in Singapore.

His parents divorced when he was just 13 years old.

At that time, his mother took all five of her children, including him, back to Malaysia.

She eventually remarried and the stepfather sent Sa Li En to several religious schools.

However, he’s not exactly the studious type and ended up dropping out of school at the tender age of 16 years old.

He started doing odd jobs instead.

At 19 years old, he moved to Johor Bahru.

The man has two Singaporean passports with a validity of 1999 to 2008, and 2008 to 2014 respectively.

He has entered and exited Singapore a total of 43 times using those passports.

In 2014, he was already 16 years old, but he didn’t renew his passport nor did he return to Singapore to serve his NS.

In a way, as long as he didn’t return to Singapore, he would have been among the handful of people who has “successfully avoided” NS.

There’s likely a spot for him in the Hall of Infamy for that.

But he did the unthinkable and later returned to the country in 2018.

He subsequently enlisted in 2019.