Private bus driver Ong Pang Siew was charged in court on Monday
for murdering a 15-year-old girl.
The 45-year-old is alleged to have killed Ong Pan Hui in his
ex-wife's flat in Marsiling Drive on Saturday night.
If convicted, he will be hanged.
Pan Hui recently completed the Primary School Leaving Examination
and was on a week's break from Yishun Primary School when she was
killed.
When her classmates returned to school on Monday, they went
straight for a counselling session to help them cope with her
death.
Pan Hui, also known as Linda, was well-liked by teachers and
classmates in school. In a condolence message to her mother,
student Nur Amirah Sabrina wrote: 'I was shocked... She was my role
model.
'I remembered one time when I was unhappy, she came and sat beside
me to cheer me up.
'I always saw her laughing. Now I won't.'
Many others also recalled her smiles and in a poem, classmate Kazim
Muntaha asked Linda's mother not to give in to the tragedy.
She wrote: 'Through all the pain and dangers even; If you still
smile no matter what; Your daughter will smile too from
heaven.'
Classmate Syarifah Amani recalled how when a boy bullied her, Linda
stepped in and told the boy off.
Both the school's principal Chan Kwai Foong and her form teacher
Kuek Ai Hsiang also said that Linda was unafraid to speak
out.
Recently, she had asked for a change in the school rules so that
she could bring a radio and listen to it on the bus.
'But she understood when I told her the school does not allow this
as she could become a target for thieves,' said Madam Kuek.
The girl from Jilin, China, came to Singapore in 2002 to join her
38-year-old mother, starting at primary two.
Madam Chan said: 'Despite her age, she had to go to a lower grade
because of her poor command of the English language.
'But she studied hard and became the most proficient among the
seven China students in her class.'
Madam Kuek said she had a missed call at 7am on Sunday followed by
a SMS in Mandarin, that read: 'I'm Pang Hui's mother. She has
died.'
The teacher called back and when went to the mortuary later, the
grieving mother told her not to return Linda's report card and
other documents.
'It was like she did not want to be reminded of her tragic loss,'
said Madam Kuek.
Linda had a four-year-old stepbrother from her mother's marriage to
Ong.
The mother, who did not want to be named, came here 10 years ago
after her first marriage failed.
She married Ong in 2001. Divorced four months ago, she moved to a
four-room flat in Marsiling Drive with her son and daughter.
That was where Linda died on Saturday.
