A little ‘flower’ crushed at a tender age

by Manjula FERNANDO

She was barely six-years. Her tender age saw her trusting everything and everyone. For her, the world was a great big exciting place full of interesting things. Needless to say that one’s own blood commanded more love and trust.

Krishnamoorthy Dushyanthani a child who just evolved from the cocoon of ‘kindergarten-years’ paid dearly for her trusting innocence. Her departure was so sudden that her mother, father and ten-year-old brother would grieve forever. A beautiful ‘butterfly’, Dushyanthani was crushed by a heartless sex predator who did not have the sense to think before the heinous crime was committed.

Who is responsible for her untimely death and the suffering she had to endure? The 18-year-old suspect and the two underaged accomplices the protectors of law custodians of the faith, or her parents? Unfortunately no amount of berating or anything for that matter could rewind what has happened now and bring this little girl back to life. It’s so too late now!.

She has already flown away and maybe to a world where she is really happy.”What has contributed to erosion of morals and ethics in our society? What has become of our society? Though too late as far as little Dushyanthani and many other victims like her are concerned”, these are questions that someone must strive to answer. Before another innocent ‘flower’ is snatched away and broken to pieces by a sex maniac.The child was living in one of the shanties behind the Kirulapone police station. Her mother is a housewife and father, a worker at a petrol shed.

Little Dushyanthani, used to visit the house of the suspect, a distant relative of hers whom she called ‘uncle’ situated in Siddhartha Lane, Kirulapone close to her own home and was not a strange place to her. However, the set up from which she came, it was deemed a usual practice.

The suspect’s three sisters and a younger brother were also living in the same house. On the night of June 30, she returned home after viewing a church procession. It was around 7.00 p.m. While in the relatives’ house, the suspect’s younger sister who was fond of Dushyanthani fed her some rice. Around 9.15 pm when Dushyanthani was not to be seen, her mother began to panic. It was not customary for her to go out in the night.

Station OIC Kirulapone CI Chandrapala

Crime OIC Kirulapone Police C.A.P. Weeraratne

A complaint was lodged at the kirulapone police by her father around 10.30 pm when all their attempts to find her failed. She seemed to have vanished! Shortly afterwards the police began a search operation.

They used the loudspeaker of the local Church to summon her home, suspecting that she may be playing with friends somewhere. After a while the search team received a tip off from the residents near the waste water canal (Kunu Ela) at Kirulapone that they heard faint cries of a child by the side of the canal and later some splashing sounds as if someone was being drowned.

Meanwhile, the suspect too joined in the search operation as if nothing had happened. He too had commented that if she had been harmed, the person responsible should be killed. On the next day her frail lifeless body was fished out from the canal. From the suspect’s behaviour and witness accounts, the police were suspicious of the 18-year-old ‘uncle’, of having a hand in the killing of the child. His younger sister told police that Dushyanthani was last seen going out of the house, escorted by him. The suspect denied this claim.

Finally on Monday, he was arrested by the police for questioning, in connection with the death of the little girl. It was not until after intense interrogation he confessed to the murder.

He revealed names of his two friends, one who was 18 years and the other 16, who took part in the sexual assault of the little girl and then the killing.According to his confession, Dushyanthani had been abused by this ‘uncle’ regularly.She was taken to an isolated place behind an international school at Thalakotuwa gardens where she was sexually abused.

This time not only by him, but by two of his accomplices as well. The suspect confessed that she wailed when the third person abused her. It was too much for little Dushyanthani to bear. The uncle panicked that she will tell her mother about what had happened. It was then that they had decided to throw her into the canal.

She had cried ‘Vendam’ (don’t) when the three mindless fellows lifted her and threw her into the water.Little Dushyanthani’s faint cries were in vain. If only her mother had the peace of mind to notice the strange behaviour of her little daughter, the strange outings that happened often with this maniac, Dushyanthani would still be living among us.

If only the relatives of that house were a little more cautious and if only the neighbours were a bit more concerned....she would not have embraced such a horrendous end, Dushyanthani will not struggle for a breath of air in a dirty canal brimming with stinky, black sewerage water, but instead be playing and laughing with her friends like a little butterfly dancing in the air.