Hulftsdorp Hill

Love that ended in mass murder

By Mudliyar

It was another dark day. As the sun went down, the people in the sleepy hamlet of Embilipitya, locked and bolted their doors, lest an invader should get into the house by chance. The villagers were not frightened of robbers or highwaymen, but they lived in dreaded apprehension that one day in the dead of night some one might knock at the door. 

The knock from a human ghoul was so deadly, it sounded and was likened to the death rattle. The villagers could hardly sleep. They heard in the distance, sounds which were now common to the village. The sound that came was different from a T56. They easily identified the groans of human suffering. A slight breeze relieved them of a hot night. But with it came the smell of burnt human flesh and that of rubber. 

Sujatha Kalugampitiya, Principal of Maha Vidyalaya, tried hard not to inhale the befouled air. She huddled together her daughter and the son and went to sleep.

November 6, 1989 was a night they would never forget. Rasika Sujatha Kalugampitiya's son was studying for the Ordinary Level examination, while her daughter Subodhya, was at home having entered the Law Faculty. The Universities were closed by the dictates of the JVP. 

As there was a looming danger of some intruder either from the JVP or the Police entering the house and robbing them or even killing them, some children of the family slept outside the house keeping vigil throughout the night.

When the clock struck twelve, Subodhya was asleep close to her brother Rasika. Then terror struck. The knock on the door was unusually loud and at once everyone in the household got up except Rasika who was in deep slumber.

They saw through the window two men standing in front of the door. They looked like civilians. Had the JVP come to know their connections with the UNP? Had they come to know that in 1971 when the SLFP was in the height of power, Dudley Senanayake started his campaign in the Uva Province at the residence of the Kalugampitiyas. 

Had they come to know that Gamini Dissanayake and Gamani Jayasuriya and the local M.P. Nanda Mathew were frequent visitors to their house when their father was living. 

Have they come to kill a family because the parents or the father who had passed away a year ago had strong UNP connections. They knew that to expect reasonableness from the JVP was like looking for the sun at midnight. They murdered innocent people for their past deeds or associations, 

The mother and the children instinctively ran and switched on every single light in the house. Then as if they had rehearsed this scene a hundred times over they shouted and cried at the top of their voices so that the entire neighbourhood would be woken. 

The brother Sisila who was sleeping outside the house got up and without thinking mechanically ran towards the house. He was only able to take a few steps. 

Men in Army uniform caught and blindfolded him and accosted him at the entrance of the house. His screams of anguish and pain were of no avail. The intruders knocked hard on the door. They then forced open the door by breaking it. Subhodhya's mother Sujatha Kalugampitiya was able to identify the intruders. She was the Principal of Moraketiya Maha Vidyalaya. The intruders then asked for Rasika. This really shocked everyone in the house. Rasika was 16 years old. They could not understand why anyone wanted to take Rasika into custody. 

During this time there were demonstrations organised by the JVP under the slogan 'Kolambata kiri – Apita Kekiri' throughout the country. Did the authorities suspect Rasika was involved in these demonstrations? 

Mrs. Kalugampitiya who was a principal was able to steer the students away from these JVP intrusions and she knew if Rasika was taken on suspicion he would be released as it would be evident to the authorities that he never got involved in these demos.

The intruders took Rasika into custody. He had been a disciplined and obedient student and an extremely loveable brother. His sister Subhodya and mother Sujatha never thought that it would be the last time they would see Rasika.

Many questions loomed as it was later identified that the intruders who took Rasika away, were from the Army.. The other brother, Sisila who was blindfolded and left in the verandah told the family how he was arrested by men in uniform. 

The next day Mrs. Kalugampitiya went to the Police, who as expected denied the arrest of Rasika. Later she came to know that three other boys studying at the Embilipitiya Central College in the same class had been also taken into custody. Curiously, four other boys, Chamara, Ruwan, Manilka and another seated in the same row in their class with Rasika had been taken into custody. 

Soon the mystery surrounding the arrest of these boys took some direction and dimension..

It was revealed that the motive for the arrest of these 16 year old boys seated in the same row, had nothing to do with any political demonstration.

The Embilipitiya Central College Principal's son Chaminda Galappaty, (the 2nd accused in the Embilipitiya student disappearance case who was acquitted by the learned High Court Judge of Ratnapura, Mr. Chandradasa Nanayakkara) had been involved with a girl called Pavithra. Pavithra had earlier been involved with a boy called Chamara Jayasena who was studying with Rasika and had been jilted by her. 

The love letters that were exchanged between Pavithra and her new boy friend Chaminda, (the son of the Principal) came into the hands of Rasika and his class mates. Especially the boys who were arrested enjoyed reading the outpourings of love by Chaminda. 

Soon the Principal was informed of the four boys who were enjoying these letters that had been exchanged between Pavithra and Chaminda. 

They were also behind Chamara Jayasena who was in despair after the girl had jilted him. The Principal Loku Galappaty spoke to Sujatha Kalugampitiya and wanted her to intervene and get the letters back. This was promptly done but the animosity towards Rasika and his friends did not end. 

The appeals and pleas made by Sujatha Kalugampitiya (mother of Rasika) to the officers of the Army Camp and to the local M.P., Nanda Mathew fell on deaf ears. Mr. Mathew, then a Minister of the Premadasa Government, told her that the Cabinet had agreed with Ranjan Wijeratne, the State Minister of Defence not to interfere with the investigations conducted by the Forces against JVP suspects. 

The impassioned appeals that her son Rasika was not involved with the JVP movement, and they had been supporters of the UNP and that the only reason her son was taken away by the Army was due to a love affair between Chaminda Galappaty the son of the Principal Loku Galappaty, and a girl Pavithra in Rasika's class becoming public knowledge were of no avail.

Sujatha nevertheless had faith that whatever intentions Loku Galappaty had, the Army and the Commander of the Camp, Parry Liyanage, an old Royalist would never do any harm to her son. 

She expected that her son would be sent to a rehabilitation camp as she was convinced that no evidence would be found against her son.

The parents of the other children having had no response from the Army proceeded to Colombo and through the intervention of Nimal Punchihewa, a human rights activist filed a number of habeas-corpus applications. 

Sujatha Kalugampitiya was so devastated by the knowledge that her son had disappeared without a trace from the Army Camp did not have sufficient strength even to do that. 

She was traumatised to such an extent that she became ill. Later the Human Rights Task Force headed by Justice Souza started an inquiry which resulted in the accused being prosecuted. Shibly Aziz the former Attorney-General sent out the indictments to the Ratnapura High Court. Chandradasa Nanayakkara, the High Court Judge, during his tenure as High Court Judge of Ratnapura, performed an unenviable task of concluding this case. 

This may have been one of the longest cases after the High Courts were established in Sri Lanka. The judicial independence was evident not by the conviction and the sentence meted out to the accused, but by the sentence of acquittal delivered on Parry Liyanage and Chandana Galappaty, the two other accused in the Embilipitiya student disappearance case. 

Though there was more than reasonable suspicion that the students had been murdered after they were abducted, the Attorney-General quite correctly and judiciously indicted them only for abduction as it would have been impossible to convict them of the murder as there was no evidence that any one of them was directly responsible for the alleged murder of the students. 

It is unfortunate that those dark days are covered with a veil of falsity where only the govt. of the day was seen as the sole perpetrator of violence.

It was the terror unleashed by the JVP and its armed wing, the DJV which made Sri Lanka such a barbarous state. Human life was reduced to nothingness.

The politicians and the 'liberators' of both divides counted with relish the numbers killed on the opposing camps. What baffles me is what kind of mind could resolve to kill school boys of 16 years of age. 

No amount of religious preachings those that condemn even the killing of a mosquito could curb the killer instinct in us. 

Sri Lanka became a killing field due to these incongruous mental attitudes of our people. I have heard even the most educated and cultured people living among us saying why can't we bomb hell out of Jaffna, killing every civilian. When hatred and anger overcome us we loose our balance. Could any psychologist answer how a uniformed officer of the State could kill a school boy like Rasika, an adolescent with an entire future before him, without any remorse?

Didn't the officer when he pulled the trigger or raise the hatchet to crush the skull of Rasika think of his family, his own brothers and sisters? The streak of cruelty present in the human species is not confined to Hitler, Idi Amin or Pol Pot. Is it not present in the majority of humans, and only controlled by the law and order and the Rule of Law? 

That is why irrespective of personal view on any matter, we must rally round to preserve the Rule of Law the only safeguard we have against humans transforming into devils.

Subhodya is now an Attorney-at-Law. She and her husband Chrishantha Weliamuna are human rights activists fighting with their senior Mr. R.K.W. Gunasekera to make this country a better place for all of us to live in.

The Jungle Telegraph

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