‘Sovereign’ or ‘Ramesh’s Wife’? Police arrest Shunfu Mart woman, netizens react

What is a ‘sovereign’ and what does it have to do with Ramesh?

Since the Circuit Breaker started on April 7, the number of written advisories given to violators have numbered in the thousands. Alvinology previously reported on different members of the Merdaka generation who blatantly disregarded and even questioned the Circuit Breaker measures to police officers and enforcers.

But no one has flouted the rules quite like this woman who claimed she was “sovereign” while netizens tagged her as “Ramesh’s wife.”

Who is the ‘sovereign’ woman?

According to previous reports, this 40-year-old woman has been caught twice in the act of flouting Circuit Breaker rules regarding the use of face masks in public. The first incident allegedly happened in a market on April 15, where two SG Clean ambassadors approached her while she was shopping without a face mask and followed her to reprimand her.

The footage of the incident circulating online showed her in sunglasses taking a video of the police who were enforcing Circuit Breaker rules. The video showed her at first acting like the police were not present then taking a video of them while they spoke with her.

Then on April 27, she figured in another video that went viral, this time with a conversation between her and private citizens who confronted her for not wearing a mask.

In the latest video, she could be seen speaking to some citizens who were wearing face masks. She acted in an agitated manner and said, “I’m a sovereign… This is something people are not going to know what it is.”

She also mentioned that she did not get sanctioned for previous violations–which could be pertaining to the April 15 incident.

What does ‘sovereign’ mean?

In a report from TODAY, speculations on what the woman could have meant when she referred to herself as ‘sovereign’ have been reported.

According to the report, sovereign citizens are individuals who adhere only to laws of their choosing using their own interpretation.

Loosely-banded in various American cities, these people are sometimes members of ‘Sovereign Citizen Movements’ that are known to commit fraud, file cases, and paperwork that clog up their local bureaucracies and courts just to further their confusing political agenda and financial schemes.

A 2016 study from the University of Arkansas have differentiated them from the “domestic terrorists” that involve far-right extreme violence like school shootings. Sovereign extremists are usually involved in white-collar crime that include refusing to pay taxes, suing government employees, and claiming property through false documents. They’ve also been known to issue false checks, money orders, and other schemes that involve duping victims with fake documentation–only to use their ‘sovereign’ political ideology to try to get out of consequences for fraud and similar cases.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation considers these people “extremists” and have mentioned that they have impersonated police officers and diplomats, harassed judges and government employees, and used fake documents such as passports and land titles to defraud individuals and institutions.

Not “Ramesh’s wife”

Even before the knowledge of what a sovereign citizen could be, netizens already coined the nickname “Ramesh’s wife” for the Shunfu Market woman, falsely attributing a previous verbal outburst in a condominium last year to her, even when there is no apparent connection to that incident.

The name referred to separate, unrelated incident where a man named Ramesh Erramalli appeared in a viral video verbally abusing an elderly security guard in a condominium parking lot. Singaporeans compared the outburst between the woman and Ramesh and found them to be reportedly similar in demeanor. Ramesh, however, has a wife and it is not this woman.

Sovereign woman arrested

According to a Facebook post on the Singapore Police Force account, the woman has been arrested.

She will be charged on May 5.