On the early morning of 10 May 1998, at a coffee shop in Geylang, 40-year-old prison warden Jaranjeet Singh, a Sikh Singaporean, was attacked by two men, one of whom was earlier involved in a quarrel with a prostitute he engaged, for allegedly staring at them.

Eventually, one of the killers, Saminathan, who had a long criminal record since his youth, was sentenced to six strokes of the cane and nine months' imprisonment for causing hurt with a dangerous weapon while Nagarajan, the other killer identified to be the one who fatally slashed Jaranjeet, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in October 1998, and after he lost his appeal, Nagarajan was put to death by hanging for the crime on 23 July 1999.

On the early morning of 10 May 1998, at a coffee shop in Geylang, Singapore's red-light district, a man was slashed on the throat and died on the spot.

As a result of her late husband's alleged murder, Pritam and her children had to move out of their three-room flat from the prison quarters, and moved to a four-room flat at Hougang, and having stopped working for more than ten years since the birth of her elder son, Pritam had to find a job to make a living while her children would be cared for by her husband's mother, who remained supportive of her after Jaranjeet's death.

During the trial itself, several witnesses of the fatal slashing, including the two prostitutes and the coffee shop owner's 32-year-old son Tiang Wen Jiann, testified for the prosecution, which was led by Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Lim Jit Hee of the Attorney-General's Chambers, and Nagarajan was represented by veteran lawyer N. Ganesan during the proceedings.

[23][24] The judge also cited in his verdict that it was clear based on the legal doctrine to convict a person of murder, Nagarajan had intentionally plunged the broken beer bottle into Jaranjeet's throat and it resulted in Jaranjeet sustaining a massive, yet fatal, loss of blood and died as a result of the attack, and the doctrine under the Penal Code also emphasised that an offender's act of intentionally inflicting an injury to a victim which could result in the victim's death in the ordinary course of nature should be considered as murder.

[25][26][27] According to the New Paper, the death sentence of Nagarajan was a huge emotional blow to his younger brother, mother, wife and 17-year-old elder son who were present in court to hear the verdict.

[29][30][31][32] On 23 July 1999, a year and two months after he killed Jaranjeet, 39-year-old S. Nagarajan Kuppusamy was hanged at dawn in Changi Prison, and on the same date of Nagarajan's execution, there were two Singaporean drug traffickers from death row - Mohammed Noor Bayasin and Gulam Notan Mohammed Shariff - who were also executed at the same timing.

[33] In the aftermath of Nagarajan's murder trial and execution, his former accomplice and friend Saminathan Subramaniam was found guilty of using a deadly weapon to cause hurt to Jaranjeet Singh (since he smashed a beer bottle onto Jaranjeet's head), and he was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment with six strokes of the cane on 23 April 1999.