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Honest Anura turns wheel on fortune
By Vidushi Seneviratne
In a day and age when one may not be able to trust even one’s nearest and dearest, one might just have the good fortune of running into a perfectly honest stranger.

In this instance, it was someone who did a good deed for no particular reason, but due to his humanness. For Anura Jayalath, a forty-four year-old three-wheeler driver, last Friday was just another day in his hectic job, but for a particular family, it will surely be one memorable day. “I was at my usual parking place when a lady approached me and asked to be taken to the Apollo Hospital. I took her and two others to their destination,” Anura said.

Returning after dropping his passengers, Anura found a lady’s handbag on the passenger seat. “I needed to know what was inside, and so carefully checked everything. There was a large sum of money, both American and Canadian dollars, Sri Lankan rupees, a box containing jewellery, two passports and a number of credit cards,” he said.

Leaving the money and jewellery at home for safety and taking with him only the passports, Anura returned to the hospital to locate his former passengers.
“At the hospital, I inquired if anyone had reported a missing handbag and was told that there was such a report. Once I located them, I showed them the passports and confirmed their ownership,” he said. Coming back with Anura to his house, the trio collected the valuables and departed after rewarding him handsomely for his honesty.

“Many of my friends asked me not to return the bag but I am an honest man and I don’t want what is not mine,” Anura said, adding that he had returned such valuables left behind in his three-wheeler, even prior to this. Having worked at the Water Board and many other government institutions, he has been a three-wheeler driver for the last five years.

Speaking to the concerned individuals we learned that the handbag had contained over a thousand American dollars, five hundred Canadian dollars, 15,000 Sri Lankan rupees, a box containing a large amount of jewellery and two passports.

“When we got to the hospital, we realised that I had left my handbag behind and didn’t have a clue how to find it. So we informed the hospital security and later lodged a complaint at the police station,” said Ms. Christine (Sera) Laurence, a resident of Canada, on vacation in Sri Lanka.

Asked why she was carrying such a large amount of valuables, Ms. Laurence said the house she was staying at was under repairs and so it was felt it was safer to keep the valuables with her.

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