Tragedy in Kahathuduwa

It was a gloomy day after a heavy spell of rain that fell on Minuwanwela area in Kahathuduwa on the evening of April 6. It was still twilight around 6.45 p.m. just before darkness fell. Minuwanwela is a quiet hamlet located in the Kahathuduwa electorate.

Some people were seen trekking along a curvy stretch of a lonely road that cuts across a rubber plantation. Employees were returning to their homes after work from Colombo and elsewhere.

Tharanganie (34) a woman employee of the Dehiwela -Mount Lavinia Municipal Council, used to commute daily by bus. She worked as a clerk at the Dehiwela -Mount Lavinia Municipal Council. She was attached to the Accounts Department. A persevering and an ambitious woman she burnt the midnight oil to read for a degree a few years ago.

Through sheer dint of hard work she graduated from the university. Although April 6th was a public holiday, Tharanganie decided to do overtime on that day on the insistence of her boss, the accountant. After attending to her work she left office that day around 5.p.m.

After alighting from the bus at the Kahathuduwa junction, Tharanganie walked hurriedly along Diyagala road that falls onto Miniwanwela village. Around 6.45.p.m. it was about to rain and there was lightening and thunder in the distant sky.

Tharanganie probably would have been scared as it was getting dark and there wern't anybody on the road. There is a double bend on the Diyagala road about 350 yards from the Kahathuduwa junction.

Tharanganie walked alone and was oblivious to the fact that two men on a motorcycle was trailing her. She noticed them only when they whizzed past her on the second bend. Both men turned around and had a good look at her and rode away. They rode for a little while and having done a U turn came in the direction of Tharanganie.

Even at this stage Tharanganie did not dream that harm would befall her. She had not done any harm to anyone, she thought. In fact Tharanganie had married only in January and was two months pregnant by now.

The two men rode past Tharanganie once again and the man on the pillion turned around and fired four shots at her with a pistol. She slumped on the ground after the gun shots penetrated her body.

She was lying unconscious on the road when two women walking far behind Tharanganie found her. They had not apparently witnessed the shooting which occurred on the first bend.

Due to lightening and thunder the two women had thought the gun fire were bolts of thunder. However they noticed two men riding a motor cycle at break neck speed. The women were puzzled and not able to figure out what happened until they reached the spot where a woman was found lying on the road in a pool of blood.

Meanwhile villagers who rushed to the spot on hearing the commotion took the victim with gunshot injuries to the Wekade hospital. The woman later succumbed to her injuries.

It was a cold blooded, ruthless killing of an innocent woman that shocked residents of Kahathuduwa when Sinhala and Tamil New year was around the corner. Initially the police too were baffled as the assassins had hardly left any clues for them to follow up.

When the matter was brought to the notice of DIG. K.P.P. Pathirana of the Western Province (South) he directed the Mirihana Special Investigation Unit led by Inspector Upul Samarasinghe and Inspector Anil Jayantha to investigate the murder.

Several persons including Tharanganie's husband were questioned by the police but they could not find any clues or the motive for the murder. By now police realised that they had to rely on circumstantial evidence.

After painstaking detective work Inspector Anil Jaythantha found an old love letter purported to have been written by an Accountant of the Dehiwela Mount Lavinia Municipal Council.

The letter was addressed to Tharanganie personally. From it's content it was crystal clear to Inspector Anil Jayantha that the 50 year old accountant, a married man with grown up children has had a clandestine affair with Tharangani long before she entered wedlock.

But the Inspector was still at a loss to understand why Tharanganie was murdered and the motive behind it. The story soon unfolded that Tharanganie had cultivated a secret illicit affair with the married Accountant for more than seven years. However few employees at the Dehiwela Mount Lavinia Municipal Council became suspicious of the affair.

It was subsequently revealed that the suspect Accountant had spent his money on Tharangni's university education over the years. But no sooner Tharanganie graduated she distanced herself from her lover and married a man of her choice. Since her marriage the Accountant became spiteful and mapped out a plan to assassinate her.

According to Mirihana Police, the suspect allegedly had paid a sum of Rs two lakhs to an underworld man at Dehiwela to assassinate Tharanganie. Later a team of policemen from the Mirihana Special Investigating Unit raided the house of an underworld man and recovered two pistols, a revolver, two hand grenades and 15 rounds of T-56 ammunition.

The man who assassinated Thranganie too was arrested by the police. However the man who rode the motor cycle is still evading arrest. The suspect were produced before the Kesbawa Magistrate and remanded till the completion of investigations. Inspector Upul Samarasinghe, along with Inspector Anil Jayantha, SI Deelip Perera, SI Kumarasinghe, Police Seargents Lakshman, Hemantha, Jaysinghe, Lakmal, and PC Gunaratne are investigating the murder.

It was one of the cruellest murders committed in Kahathuduwa in recent times police said.

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