'We've lost someone, we're owed answers': Family of S'porean man, 48, murdered in Malawi more than 1 year ago

The last time Prema Menon saw her older brother, he was lying on his bed as they spoke over a family Zoom call.

Prema was in Australia, her brother, Arjun Menon, in Malawi, and the rest of their family back in Singapore.

Their father used to like to arrange these Zoom calls to discuss family matters — it was their usual run-of-the-mill conversations.

She never imagined that would be the last time she would see her brother.

On May 11, 2025, Arjun passed away after he was attacked and killed in Malawi on his way home from a night out in what is suspected to be a robbery gone wrong.

Arjun, a former Singapore national cricketer, was working in Malawi as the operations manager of Cricket Malawi.

Almost a year and a half later, Prema and the family are still fighting to uncover the truth.

They also want continued action and investigation from the authorities, Prema tells Mothership in an interview at their family home in September.

The call

Going back to the day the family received the news of Arjun's death, Prema said it was "earth-shattering".

"I don't think anybody expects to receive news of a sibling passing," she said.

Prema happened to be in Singapore that day, and was out with her family going for house viewings.

They received a call from an unknown overseas number, and Prema's younger sister picked up the phone.

It was Arjun's wife, screaming that he had been murdered, Prema recounted.

"I was in disbelief. I thought, is this a prank? Like, is this actually happening? Am I dreaming?" she said.

What followed was a blur, Prema said: "Everything around you starts to almost fade out, and all you can hear is like the blood rushing in your head, and that's what it really felt like."

To make it more painful, she had to be the one to relay the news to her family.

"I think to tell your parents and kind of watch it sink in for them, and to watch their anguish is actually one of the worst things to experience," she said.

That day, something changed in her as she watched her mother, father, and sister in such a deep state of distress.

"You kind of know that your life is never going to be the same again."

Flew over to Malawi

A few days after they received the call, Prema flew over to Malawi to put Arjun to rest, on behalf of the family.

They decided not to bring him back to Singapore because they knew he loved Malawi a lot.

"Going there was a strange experience. I think you're going to a country that you've heard so much about. My brother talked about it so much, but you're going under this very weird circumstance that is deeply sad," Prema said.

The next five days would be the longest of Prema's life.

Funeral arrangements, cremation, sea burial, and the scattering of ashes.

"I went through the motions like a robot," she said.

"It's really hard to believe it is happening, but time moves on, and you just have to get it done. So it becomes this very weird, almost insulated, robotic slow-motion film that happens that you have no control over."

What they know

The family was told that Arjun was attacked by unknown assailants outside the compound of his home.

He had gone out for the night with a couple of friends and had gone back home alone. He was attacked as he was on the way home.

"So that's all we know. His wallet was stolen. His car was later found abandoned. And sadly, we don't know more than that. Even 16 months on," Prema said.

When she was in Malawi, she was focused on making sure Arjun got a good send-off and didn't focus too much on getting answers from the authorities.

Arjun's boss, the president of cricket in Malawi, had also assured her that he had it under control and was speaking to the police.

As the system was foreign to her, she also didn't feel that stepping in would help at that point.

So she left it in the hands of Arjun's bosses and the Malawi cricket association.

But a couple of months later, the family would hear the same thing — the investigation is still ongoing.

By September 2025, Prema started speaking to different people to figure out what she could do to take the case forward herself and look for answers.

Mother's death

At the same time, Prema's mother was struggling with a chronic condition that had progressed.

She eventually passed away in December 2025.

"My mother is very central to who I am. She's a huge part of my life, and I think when I lost her, I lost a part of me," Prema said, tearing up.

It felt like something in her finally broke, she said.

For a long time after Arjun's passing, Prema had held it together for the family, naturally stepping into the shoes of the "oldest sibling" after his death.

She had felt the responsibility to take the matter of his murder on herself.

"So when [my mother] passed, I felt like the universe was against me. I felt like nothing. You ask yourself: 'What is all of this even for?' Like, not just my mother's life or my brother's life. What's my life even for?" Prema said.

Thinking she needed a mental health break, she temporarily stopped her search for answers.

Grief

This was when Prema was finally able to properly grieve.

"I think sometimes when death happens, especially in our circumstances where it's tragic, you are very focused on outcomes," she said.

"You actually don't let yourself feel the loss," she added.

"I think by grieving my mother, I learned how to grieve my brother. By grieving my brother, I grieve parts of my mother. It is a deeply affecting experience."

But another thing Prema learned through her grief was that it is a blessing to be able to grieve people so deeply — because it meant she loved them so much and felt so loved by them.

"That's why I had to take a break. It really rewired my brain a little bit," she said.

Restarting the search for answers

Around February or March in 2026, Prema started to think about kickstarting the search for answers into Arjun's death again.

But she wasn't sure how exactly she could do it.

A lot of Arjun's friends and people around her were also asking her about the progress and why nothing was happening.

Prema realised that many of them did not have the context that she did, and that was when she realised the easiest way was to let them witness her process of looking for answers.

In July 2026, she set up social media pages and started documenting herself looking for answers.

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Updates

On Jul. 16, Prema called the original investigating officer of Arjun's case for an update and was told that the case had been reassigned to a new inspector.

This inspector then told Prema that a factual report had already been sent to the Singapore Embassy in Beijing.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) had liaised with the Singapore Embassy in Beijing as a liaison embassy to speak to Malawi to ask for updates, as there was no embassy in Malawi.

Prema asked for a copy of the report and was promised she would get it.

Some people she knew in Malawi also contacted her on Jul. 17, saying they had been called in for questioning and there was just this flurry of activity by the police.

To Prema, some signs of action from the Malawi police were good news — it was a sign they were finally moving, and the case wasn't getting cold.

But she received the report only weeks later, dated Jul. 31, 2026 — two weeks after she called them.

She said the report was also only received by the Singapore Embassy in Beijing on Aug. 12, 2026, nearly a month after she was first told it was already on its way.

She also found the report sparse, with just a few additional details of the case.

Eventually, things fizzled out.

As of Sep. 30, 2026, the main investigating officer has changed his phone number, and she is unable to make contact with any of the investigating team.

In response to Mothership's queries, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said they have reached out to the Malawi authorities and will render necessary assistance, within the ambit of Singapore's laws, should a request be made.

As of Oct. 27, SPF has not received any request for assistance from the Malawi authorities regarding this case.

What she hopes to achieve

Prema said her ultimate goal is to compel those who can help to act.

"My hope is we get enough momentum going that somebody feels compelled to act, and those who can help us and need to help us will act," she said.

"The fact of the matter is, we are the next of kin. We are owed answers. That fact that nobody feels like we are owed answers is actually a deeply offensive and insulting feeling."

"We've lost someone," she added.

Remembering Arjun

To Prema, Arjun was her "teddy bear" big brother, one she could always count on for positivity and optimism.

Someone she went to for advice and someone who would celebrate her wins with her.

"Arjun had the ability to look at you and see the best in you and make you believe that you could achieve things. He also had the ability to talk to you and make you feel like you're the most important person," she shared.

If she could have one more conversation with him, Prema said she would simply ask Arjun if it's going to be okay.

"And I sense he would say, 'Yeah, you'll be fine.' I take a lot of comfort in that."