Poverty, child abuse and murder

The total number of pupils attending the Haldummulla We-eliya Junior School is a mere sixty. Daily attendance is reportedly much lower and the school was in danger of being closed due to very poor attendance. Today under the leadership of a new principal S.P. Nanayakkara the average attendance has improved. As an initial step the principal made a study to seek the causes behind the low attendance and discovered two important causes for students not attending classes.

One was broken families arising from mothers moving out to the middle east in search of employment to keep the home fires burning. However there are other issues beside poverty and broken homes which keep children away from school. The sad and tragic story of little Sudharshana a grade 3 student tells its own story…

In the aftermath of the LTTE attacks in Buttala and Thanamalwila DIG H.N. Ambanwala in charge of the Uva Division caused joint search operations to be carried out by the army and police to calm the fears of villagers in the area. Yet, one morning little Sudharshana did not attend school. Around evening his mutilated body was discovered in the jungle. K.P. Ajith Kumara 27, an uncle of Sudharshana in a statement to the police told investigators that Sudharshana’s father was a Tamil whose wife had died in an accident. Ajith said he was married to Sudharshana’s mother’s sister and they had adopted the boy.

He said after his wife went to the Middle East in search of employment, the boy had dropped out of school. He claimed that on the day in question Sudharshana had accompanied him to the jungle to weed their cultivation, when a group of Tigers had suddenly appeared and they had run for their lives. He claimed though he had escaped, Sudharshana was killed by the Tigers. Police however did not believe the suspect’s story as search operations revealed no LTTE activity in the area.

The post mortem carried out at the Diyatalawa Hospital revealed that the child had been sexually abused before the murder which gave rise to a suspicion that the child may have been killed by the man who adopted him. The special investigation ordered by ASP R. Wijesinghe of the Bandarawela police revealed that the child’s foster parent had a criminal record which made police arrest him. Subsequently the man confessed that he was the killer and had killed the child as he could not satisfy him sexually. The suspect was remanded after being produced before the Bandarawela Magistrate .