S'porean woman hopes truth will come to light, as friends and family pay last respects to husband killed in Phuket fight

SINGAPORE — Days after her husband Amitpal Singh Bajaj, 34, died following an early morning altercation in Phuket with a Norwegian man in their hotel room, Ms Bandhna Kaur Bajaj is still reliving the horror of the traumatic incident.

“Since I came back (from Thailand), every morning I would get startled when it gets noisy outside the house, and my son will grip my hand tighter, because we are so afraid that someone will break in and hurt us,” said Ms Bandhna, 34, to TODAY in an interview on Saturday (Aug 24) at her Katong home.

Her husband, a British national who worked as an app developer, was cremated at Mandai Crematorium on Saturday. More than 100 relatives and friends turned up at their home to sing hymns in a teary farewell.

Friends from Britain and India turned up as well to pay their last respects to the man who was known in the international Sikh community as a singer of devotional Sikh hymns.

The fatal fight at the five-star Centara Grand Hotel between Amitpal and Norwegian Roger Bullman, 54, who stayed in an adjacent room, came about in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday.

Amitpal was held in a chokehold by Bullman, and the fight stopped after Ms Bandhna ran to get help from the hotel staff with their 20-month old son Veer. Amitpal would pass away later from asphyxiation.

Bullman has been released on bail. The case is still under investigation.

Speaking to TODAY after the cremation, Ms Bandhna, a Singaporean, said she hopes for the truth to come to light. She said she had never met Bullman before he barged into their room.

The incident happened on the last day of their Thai vacation to celebrate their June wedding anniversary.

As for her plans, all she hopes for now is to be able to heal and support her son as a single mother, though she believes it would not be possible to fill the void left behind by Amitpal.

“Everybody — my brother, my cousins, my father — has told me that they will be like father figures to Veer. But no matter how much love they give him, they can’t replace him.”

Describing how her late husband would sing hymns to Veer daily to help him sleep, she said her son now has difficulty sleeping, looking around the room for his “dada”.

“A mother can do so much for her son, but a father’s love is different. If there is a Father’s Day in future, how will he feel? That is the space that I cannot ever fill,” she said.

Ms Bandhna said while emotions are still raw, she is coming to terms with the fact that she has lost the man who had been her sweetheart since they were 18 years old.

“As each day passes, I am also realising that my husband is actually gone for good and he was my true best friend — I would share inside jokes with him, about people, about food and every small thing. It will hit me more as each day passes by that I don’t have him there, to sit with him, have a partner to talk to, to share a laugh or a joke.

“I know it is going to be a very tough road ahead, a very different journey.”