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Death of Indian couple: Alleged suicide due to loss at casino, say police
Investigators probing the death of an Indian couple at a hotel in Wellawatte last week confirmed that the pair had committed suicide by consuming poison after losing heavily at a city casino that same night, a senior policeman said yesterday.
The hotel where the couple was staying. Pic by Nilan Maligaspe
The husband Puthu-Veevam Ramba aged 31 was from Andra Pradesh and his 28-year-old wife Thaga Boshina Mahalakshimi from Tamil Nadu. The couple were domiciled in Malaysia, police said.It was not immediately known if the couple had visited Sri Lanka on earlier occasions and police suspect that they were professional gamblers.
According to hotel employees the woman was also in an advanced state of pregnancy and the autopsy is scheduled to be held today at the Colombo South Teaching Hospital in Kalubowila.
They said that the couple had checked in to the hotel along with employees of the casino and an advance payment of Rs. 30,000 had been paid for their food and board..
They had checked in on March 27 after arriving in the country on the same day on a flight from Kula Lumpur.
The police were called after hotel staff became suspicious since the couple had not left the room for the entire day and neither had they called room service. The police along with the hotel staff later opened the room door with a duplicate key to find the bodies of the couple sprawled face down on the bed. Police also recovered an empty soft drink bottle whose contents are thought to have been used with the poison.
On the day prior to the incident the couple had arrived at the hotel in the early hours of the morning in a vehicle owned by a casino situated in the heart of the city the hotel staff were quoted by the police as saying.
Relatives of the victims are due to arrive in the country today or early tomorrow morning to identify the bodies, police said.