A woman was ordered by the court to be remanded at the Institute of Mental Health for psychiatric observation on Saturday, May 9, after she was filmed not wearing a mask and arguing with others at Sun Plaza shopping mall.

Kasturi Govindasamy Retnamsamy, 40, was also charged with using criminal force on the police, on top of multiple counts of verbal abuse.

She will return to court on May 22.

The charges

By struggling and resisting arrest, she was given one charge of using criminal force on a police officer.

Another four charges were slapped on her for using abusive words on a police officer and three other people.

The offences took place during an incident on May 7 in the Sun Plaza mall in Sembawang.

Cursed at people

A crowd manager at the mall called the police after the woman refused to wear her mask and was uncooperative.

Kasturi allegedly began peeling off the address sticker on her identity card when the police arrived and asked for her identity.

The woman then used abusive words on a woman, saying: "Scan the IC, b****".

Kasturi also allegedly cursed at a police officer by using similar vulgarities on another man, calling him "you idiot".

She also allegedly caused a woman distress by saying: "Covid-19 is because of you Chinese."

Kasturi allegedly struggled and resisted arrest when a police officer tried to subdue her about an hour after the incident.

Two incidents in Sun Plaza in total

Kasturi was previously fined S$300 for not wearing a mask at Sun Plaza on an earlier occasion on April 29.

The video that made the rounds online was from the April 29 incident.

Penalties

She will be investigated for not wearing her mask properly under the Covid-19 (Temporary Measures) (Control Order) Regulations 2020.

The penalty for using criminal force on a public servant is a jail term of up to four years, a fine, or both.

The woman could be jailed for up to a year, fined up to S$5,000, or both for cursing at a public servant.

For using abusive words on the other victims, she could be jailed for up to six months, fined a maximum S$5,000, or both.