Columns

• 19 YEAR OLD BOY’S SENSELESS MASSACRE THAT SHOCKED THE WORLD
• Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau leads the nation’s sympathies as Ottawa’s massacred Lankans are finally laid to rest in moving funeral

It’s the worst massacre that Canada has ever known. The worst tragedy that ever befell a Lankan migrant family abroad: A family of five and their resident friend wiped out in an instant, not by a natural disaster or a pandemic but by a fellow 19-year-old Lankan, suddenly seized with a demonic rage to brutally murder them one by one.

At the end of that chilling orgy of multiple deaths, only the father of the family survived, physically wounded and mentally broken and indelibly traumatised. The unthinkable tragedy also left the Lankan community benumbed by grief as they gathered to bid their last farewells.

THE GRIEF OF TWO CITIES 8000 MILES APART: Danushka heartbroken in Ottawa over the loss of his wife and four children while Dishani and two children, Asheni and Kaylie in Rajagiriya, remain distraught over loss of husband and father Gamini, killed in the same horrific massacre on March 6th Wednesday night

Last Sunday afternoon around 1pm Canadian time, a small cortege of vehicles arrived at Ottawa’s Infinity Convention Centre for the funeral service of those whose massacre ten days before had shocked the world.

Leading the funeral procession were a number of hearses bearing the sealed coffins of the mother and her four small children and their resident friend, each of them slain by the icy hand of a knife toting reaper who had taken residence in the household as recently as two months ago.

The insane attacker hadn’t even spared the family’s youngest daughter, an infant only two months old. And last Sunday she lay in the same coffin that bore her mother, snuggled to her bosom, hushed in death. Her brief life on earth, upon which she had never placed step, snuffed out like an unshielded flame in gusty winds.

Along with the 35-year-old mother, Dharshani, the children massacred that night were seven-year-old Inuka, four-year-old Ashwini, two-year-old Ranaya, and two-month-old baby Kelly; while the family friend Gamini, who also lived in their home and died with them, was 40 years old.

As their coffins were wheeled, one by one, to their final resting place, the eyes of over two hundred mourners, rested on the distraught father who himself had narrowly escaped death that fatal day.

As he sombrely walked, seeming utterly bewildered, behind the mortal remains of his family on their final journey on earth, the few words Danushka Wickremesinghe wanted to express but couldn’t bring himself to utter, were read out by a friend: ‘I am devastated and torn by the loss of my beloved wife Dharshani and my beautiful angels Inuka, Ashwini, Ranaya, and Kelly and my dear friend Gamini.’

His inconsolable grief at the loss of his wife and children in Canada, found simultaneous echo in a Rajagiriya home, where a wife and her two daughters – of whom the youngest was only two years – lay distraught in a state of total disbelief, ever since learning that husband and father Gamini, had also died in the horrific knife attacks in the Wickremesinghe family’s ill-fated home that day.

Gamini Amarakoon’s wife, Dishani, in a taped message played at the funeral, said: ‘I still feel you will ring me anytime, and the memories we collected together will always be in our hearts. You went there hoping to give a good future to the kids. But all of our dreams just faded in a way that we never thought of.’

THE SUSPECT: Febrio charged with mass murder

The senseless knife attacks had instantly shattered the hopes that lay reposed in the family breast of a happy reunion shortly in Canada to forge a better future for themselves. Alas, that cherished dream was also slain in Ottawa’s nightmare.

As the recorded voice of Gamini’s elder daughter, eleven-year-old Asheni, was played at the funeral hall, making her last heartbreak tribute to her father as he was being laid to eternal rest, ‘You were an amazing dad and an amazing friend and, not only that, you were an amazing husband to ammie and we want you to know we all love you a lot. Just look over us, and take care of us, and we’re sorry we weren’t there when you needed it,’ each word cut like a knife ripping through even the stoniest hearts, and left not a single eye dry without an unbidden tear in the assembly of mourners.

Listening to the words of a young child, old enough to know her father had died but too young to fathom its gravity, a mourner said: ‘A child should not have to go through that kind of  a situation, a trauma, especially something  like this.’

Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau led the nation’s sympathies to the bereaved families and expressed his shock and trauma. His condolence message read at the service, said: ‘It is with greatest sorrow that I offer my deepest condolences to members of the Wickremesinghe family as well as for Mr. Gamini Amarakoon’s family. Nothing can prepare anyone for such a loss.’

A pall of gloom had descended on the Lankan community and grief was rife.

DHARSHANI’S MOTHER: It’ll be the end of my life

A young girl, Bhagya Jayaweera, said at the funeral, ‘Can’t believe something like this ever happening to anyone, especially to four kids, and like a whole family ripped apart and another family ripped apart.’

Buddhist Congress of Canada president Naradha Kodituwakku said the tragedy was deeply affecting Sri Lankan immigrant families in Canada. ‘For them to come here and have their life ended in such a short term … we were devastated. We are still devastated.’

Thankfully for them, their devastation will be short-lived. After the first shock wave of the massacre that swept across the community to deluge them in grief has passed, the tidewater will gradually ebb to make life limp back to normal.  For Danushka, however, there will be no such solace. His grief will not recede nor will time ever heal his devastated heart. The nightmare will always remain in him.

The flood of recollections of that fateful night of March 6, will ever be present to burst the fragile gates and to relentlessly engulf him in sorrow and ceaseless pain. Though his external wounds may physically heal, the scars will never fade but stand as a testament to how with Damocles’ sword o’erhead arrayed, all life danced on a razor blade.

On that night Danushka had come home after finishing a job he had done for the cleaning company he apparently ran with friend Gamini. The first thing he had noticed was that the house lay in complete darkness. And it was unusually quiet.

As resident monk at Hilda Jayewardenaramaya Buddhist Monastery, Bante Suneetha, who had known Danushka’s family well, told the Canadian media after visiting him in hospital, ‘Danushka had come home after a cleaning job when the attack occurred. He had resisted and asked the suspect if his family had been hurt, to which the alleged murderer said: ‘No, I didn’t do anything to them’. But when he went to his kids, they were ‘gone’.

Police said neighbours had called at 10.52pm, describing a man in distress outside in his driveway, howling and screaming for someone to call 911. When they arrived they found a man yelling for help; and, inside his house, found the bodies of his wife and four children and the front door smeared all over with blood. They had quickly identified the suspect who was arrested without incident.

At her home, here in Sri Lanka, the grief-stricken mother of Dharshani spoke of the endearing selfless qualities of her daughter and said: ‘It’s like my life has ended.’

The teary eyed mother recalled: ‘She had graduated from the university and was working at a company in the shipping line. After she got married, she got a government teaching post in Puttalam. Since it was too far, she turned it down. Many turned up at home and wanted her to give them tuition in econ but she didn’t want to do that either. She told me she could not take money from students. Oh, my kelle. What thoughts she would have had at the time of her death?’

THE FATHER: Devastated at funeral

‘She lived with the Buddha’s word, and had a flippant attitude to death. She often used to say ‘we are here today and gone tomorrow. And not to leave her this house and property but to give it all to aiyya. One thing she loved was having children. When she got her last child and when I shouted at her and told her to stop, she said, ‘if I can, I’ll have some more.’

Dharshani’s mother, Mrs. Ekanayake also said of her daughter’s and grandchildren’s attacker: ‘I have been to his parents’ house. They seemed very decent people, though I have never met the boy’.

The boy, Febrio de Zoysa, had arrived in Canada two years ago to follow a course of study at Algonquin College in Ottawa. He had been staying with his aunt until moving out for no apparent reason.

His aunt Anusha de Zoysa said: ‘Febrio is my brother’s oldest son, and came to Canada two years go. He was a nice and a quiet student at first. Since of late he began to act strangely. He blocked his family’s numbers on his phone and social media and cut of all contact with us’.

Anusha de Zoysa said her nephew had met Wickremesinghe at Algonquin College and he went to live with them. The family was so nice to him. They were such a wonderful family.  I’m still shaking. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think this would happen. I am frozen. And I can’t sleep.

Febrio has been having problems at his school and has not attended classes since December last year. He had been a fanatical video gamer and had even uploaded his games on YouTube which Google has now removed. At the preliminary court proceedings last Thursday, he was charged with six counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.  His lawyer warned of a lengthy trial considering that a request for him to undergo a mental-health assessment would “probably be a few months from now.’

Danushka had unwittingly brought death to his household two months ago, and kept it fed and free of rent in his basement to mercilessly massacre his family and friend at the appointed hour of March 6th night; and end his and his murdered friend’s family in Lanka’s best-laid plans to build a new life in Canada.

The next court date is on Thursday; and until and unless the long-winded process ultimately unfolds the mystery of that horrendous night, no one will ever know what exactly triggered the massacre that caused the gaiety that warmly flowed at Febrio’s 19th birthday bash at Danushka’s home a few days earlier, to gruesomely end in cold blood.