Ragama horror unearthed
By Chris Kamalendran
The breakthrough in the mysterious murder of a woman soldier in Ragama came from one of the persons who reportedly helped the businessman allegedly involved in the killing to dispose of the body, police said.They said he had leaked information to a special Police unit.
Angry mobs torched at least 10 houses and eight vehicles belonging to the main suspect - a 26 year old businessman when the body was discovered on Wednesday in his backyard.
Inoka Sewandhi Weerasekara, 24 attached to the Women's Corp II of the Army in Anuradhapura had been carrying on with the businessman who later turned out to be her alleged killer. Her parents had objected to the affair, but they had carried on regardless.
"We had complained to the Police about the man's behavior as we did not trust him. Our suspicions were built on information we got from neighbours," said Lalitha Piyaseeli, Inoka's mother.
"Inoka had also told us that the man was threatening her but she could not break the affair," she said.
Last year in February Inoka had joined the Army and served in Anuradhapura. Three months later the suspect Prabath de Saram had called over at the army camp and got her to come with him allegedly saying her parents had met with an accident. Two days later Inoka's mother had called the camp only to find that she had been taken away on a false alarm.
Efforts to trace the daughter proved futile and eventually she had complained to the Kadawatha Police in June.
"Towards the end of June Inoka came home with a stab injury and complained that Prabath had stabbed her and was forcibly keeping her at house in Batalanda, in Sapugaskanda. She said that she wanted to get back to the Army. But we asked her to stay at home. One day when I was out of the house my daughter was taken away. That is the last I saw her," Ms. Piyaseeli said.
In July the family lodged a complaint at the Kadawatha Police about the alleged abduction of the girl by Prabath. Soon after they lodged another complaint, but without any results.
Eventually both parties - Inoka's family and Prabath's family were summoned to the Police station on August 31. Police said Prabath had claimed that Inoka had demanded her passport which was in his possession and left the country. But Inoka's family did not accept this claim.
As their suspicions mounted, Inoka's family continued to search for her. They were aware that Prabath was having a mistress in Ganemulla.
The mistress allegedly posing off as Inoka had called home and said she was keeping fine and not to worry.
Family members fearing that the Police were not carrying out investigations properly decided to lodge a complaint at the Peliyagoda Special Operations branch.
The Special Operations Branch, led by IP H.Samudrajeewa now came into the scene and launched its own investigation.
They began by gathering information about the suspect which finally led them to one of the people who reportedly helped Prabath dispose of the body. The man is now in custody and has reportedly made a confession about the murder allegedly carried out by Prabath.
According to him Prabath had allegedly taken Inoka to the mistress's home at Ganemulla in September and on the 26th of the same month had allegedly murdered Inoka by strangling her. Later he had sought the assistance of his mistress and two others, who are now in custody, to dispose of the body.
They had first taken the body to a cemetery in Kadawatha, but had failed in their attempts to dispose of it.They had taken the body which had been cut into three parts to Parabath's house at Kurukulawa in Ragama and buried it there in the backyard, police said.
The informants who had helped in disposing the body were arrested in February and police had kept a tab on the alleged mistresses phone.
Police said the mistresses involvement in the killing came to light when she gave a call to Inoka's home posing off as Inoka and saying they were fine and would be visiting the family during the Sinhala New Year.
Prabath and the mistress were arrested on Tuesday while the vehicle used to dispose of the body was seized.
Less than 24 hours after body was discovered and the culprits arrested, villagers in shock and horror went on a rampage torching houses and other belongings of Prabath's family.
Two leading bookshops in Kiribathgoda and Kadawatha owned by Prabath's family were also attacked.
On Friday the body of Inoka was exhumed on a directive given by the Gampaha Magistrate, Irangani Perera. More than 200 policemen were deployed in the area along with army personnel to control the large gathering who had thronged the place.
As the body was being exhumed there were more unruly scenes.
Inoka's mother was able to identify the body with the ear - stud and the T-shirt on the body.
Colombo North JMO Ananda Samarasekara supervised the exhumation."