SINGAPORE PROFESSOR STABBED AND STUDENT DIES!
AN information engineering professor of the Nanyang Technological Universityy is undergoing emergency operation in hospital after he was allegedly stabbed by a final year student in his office on Monday morning. Moments after the attack, the body of the fourth year undergraduate, believed to be an Indonesian Chinese, was found at the foot of the seven-storey School of Electrical, Electronic and Engineering building. He is believed to have also slit his wrist.
NTU students returning from their mid-term one-week break were shocked at the double tragedies which happened at about 10.30am on the sixth floor, where the offices of the lecturers are located. The School of EEE is next to the School of 
Communications. Prof Chan Kap Luk, is his 40s, is said to be the supervisor of the student in a project. Police said he suffered stab wounds on his back and arm and was rushed to the nearby National University Hospital. Trails of bloodstains were seen along the entrance to the lecturers’ office, where a blood-soaked blue shirt was found.
An eye-witness, Mr Liu Yan, 24, a final-year electronic enginneeing student from China, said he and his friend were studying in the Research Techno Plaza on the fourth level, when he happened to look out of the window and saw a student with blood oozing from his arm running across a 
bridge, which links the School of EEE and the plaza. Next, he saw the student on the glass rooftop of the bridge and moments later, he was no longer there. The rooftop was covered with blood splatter, he said.
‘I immediately called the police and then, with my friend, rushed down to check. We were shocked to see the student’s body at the foot of the block,’ said Mr Liu. An NTU spokesman said it would issue a press statement later on Monday (see below for the statement).
Professor Chan Kap Luk is the Deputy Director of Biomedical Engineering Research Centre, at the NTU’s division of Information Engineering. He has been with the School of EEE since 1992. He received his Bachelor degree in Electronic Engineering from Queen Mary College of University of London, UK, and PhD degrees from the Imperial College of University of London.
According to Prof Chan’s website, which was last updated in 2005, he lectures final year undergraduate engineering class in Multimedia Systems and tutors a year 3 class in microprocessors. The professor, who is said to enjoy cooking and swimming, also lectures a master’s class in image processing and pattern recognition. Prof Chan’s research interests include computer vision and machine learning. He has 
done significant research work in his research areas and published over 40 top quality international conference and journal papers. He has been often invited as a committee member or referee and reviewer for a number of premier conferences and journals. Dr Chan is a member of IEEE, IET and PREMIA.
He was formerly a project manager at Axiom Innovation Ltd, in Cambridge, UK, as Information Engineer from Nov. 1990 - Aug. 1991 and later became project Manager. Prof Chan Kap Luk’s areas of expertise are Image Analysis and Computer Vision, Image and Video Retrieval, and Biomedical Signal/Image Analysis for Computer Assisted Diagnosis System (CADS).
NTU statement
NTU issued this statement on Monday, following a stabbing attack earlier in the morning.
‘A final year student from the electrical and electronics 
engineering school stabbed a professor this morning, 2 March 2009. The student then jumped off a building. An ambulance and the police were called immediately. The student was pronounced dead. The next-of-kin of the student and professor have been notified. The professor has received medical treatment for cuts sustained and is in stable condition.
President NTU, Dr Su Guaning, says, ‘The university is deeply shocked and saddened by what has happened. The matter will be investigated thoroughly. The university community will rally together at this difficult time and do our utmost to help the student’s family, the professor and his family, and those traumatised by the incident.’
The University’s counselling professionals have been mobilised to help. The school is helping the police with investigations.’
STABBED SINGAPORE PROFESSOR…A CASE OF WRONG PERSON!
THE Nanyang Technological University student who stabbed his professor and then fell to his death was apparently upset over the termination of his Asean scholarship, said an Indonesian Embassy official here. Mr Djatmiko of the Embassy’s Counsellor Protocal Office told Indonesia’s detikNews on Monday: ‘The motive of the stabbing apparently has to do with the termination of his scholarship, and there seemed to be a miscommunication over this.’
He believed that the student, David Hartanto Widjaja, 21, a final year engineering student, had ’stabbed the wrong person by mistake’ as the professor had nothing to do with the termination of his scholarship, a view Mr Djatmiko said was shared by many NTU lecturers.
‘There is no problem with this professor. He did not decide and issue the decison to terminate the scholarship. The NTU staff said there seems to be a case of mistaken person,’ he added.
‘This is the final year of the scholarship and David seemed 
confused. When the scholarship is terminated, he can work part-time, there is no problem.’ ‘It’s a real pity, a real pity,’ Mr Djatmiko told detikNews. ‘His examination is due in April and the results will be out in July, so he has only several more months.’
Widjaja, 21, an Indonesian on an Asean scholarship, knifed Associate Professor Chan Kap Luk, 45, in the back during a discussion in his office at the NTU campus, then slit his own wrists before fleeing and falling four floors to his death shortly after the attack.
His distraught parents claimed his body at the Singapore General Hospital mortuary on Tuesday morning. They and their elder son, aged 24, flew in from Jakarta on Monday evening after the NTU authorities notified them of the tragedy, which stunned students returning to campus on the first day after a one-week break.
The family arrived at the SGH mortuary at 8.40 am on Tuesday in a grey van, accompanied by NTU counsellors and officials from the Indonesian Embassy here. They left the mortuary at about 1 pm, after Widjaja’s body was taken away by a white van, understood to be from a casket firm. Widjaja’s body is expected to be cremated later on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Prof Chan, who is from the Division of Information Engineering, is recovering from injuries to his back and arms at the National University Hospital. His condition is said to stable although a sign outside his ward on Tuesday morning says ‘No visitors allowed.’
The father of two young children underwent an emergency operation on Monday evening to stitch up wounds to his back. A finger on his right hand was also placed in a splint. His wife said he was doing fine and is expected to be discharged in a few days.
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