The missing lady doctor found in pilgrims’ rest

The sudden disappearance of the anaesthetist, a lady doctor from the Matara General Hospital, Erandathie Kulasinghe (28) last week raised a hornet's nest following wide media coverage of the incident. The story generated so much heat that it was on every body's lips. It was the topic that people discussed in restaurants and in buses and trains. Many expressed different views on her sudden disappearance and linked the incident to a popular doctor in the South who was slain by hired killers right opposite his dispensary last year.

Some people also feared that she was whisked away to a secret location by abductors after intercepting her car while she was on her way to Hikkaduwa on November 23 evening so that they could demand ransom money from her family for her release. She wound up her work at the Matara hospital that afternoon and left for the Uyanwatte hospital quarters from where she picked up her baggage and left telling her colleagues that she was going to her father-in-law's home at Hikkaduwa to join her husband.

The time was around 5 p.m. when she left Matara in her car. She drove her car alone that evening. The physician was a married woman and her husband was also a physician of an army hospital.

The lady doctor, however, did not turn up at Hikkaduwa that evening and her panic-stricken husband having waited for so long to greet her, lodged a complaint at the Matara police station around 10.30 p.m. not knowing the fate of his wife.

He was desperate and told the police to find her somehow. He was in a state of worry. Her car could have run off the road and crashed into an object injuring her fatally or some other mishap would have happened to her. Someone could have even abducted her, he told the police. The police too were initially baffled as they had no clue whatsoever. After entertaining the complaint the Matara police flashed messages countrywide and alerted police stations to be on the lookout for a woman doctor gone missing.

Her husband told the police that when he rang her up that evening she informed him that she was somewhere at Unawatuna. She also told him that she would arrive late due to the traffic congestion on Galle Road. But when she failed to turn up that evening he rang her mobile phone several times but there was no response. The mobile phone was not functioning and he repeatedly told police that something serious might have happened to her.

The couple had been married for more than two years and she stayed with her husband and with her in-laws at their home in Hikkaduwa. The lady doctor's parents lived at Kalutara, police said. However, her sudden disappearance captured media attention last week. Soon the public began to talk about the disappearance. How could she simply disappear while driving her car and obviously someone would have abducted her. Or perhaps she may have gone elsewhere following a dispute with her family some people felt. There was no news about her for more than three days. Nobody had any knowledge about her whereabouts not even her close friends. She did not confide in anyone where she was heading or what her plans were.

However, the investigation on the disappearance dragged on for a couple of days with no signs of the lady doctor. The eye catching headlines in the newspapers probably caught the attention of the IGP N.K. Illangakoon who instructed the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) Director, Senior Superintendent of Police W.D.L. Ranaweera to investigate the disappearance and submit a report to him. CCD sleuths along with the Matara Police began a relentless investigation on the case. They began questioning several people at the Matara hospital to ascertain whether the lady doctor had any enemies but there was no evidence to that effect. The sleuths then began monitoring her mobile telephone calls to locate where she was. By then she had switched off her mobile phone and the police found it impossible to trace her where abouts.

The sleuths on her trail stumbled on an important clue when they arrived at Ahangama. They found that the doctor had stopped for a while at a petrol filling station at Ahangama to refuel for a long journey. But the police were not in a position to say where she went that night. When police questioned the pump attendants they vaguely described the direction in which she took off that night. They said she drove off towards Colombo.

The sleuths probably identified her car from the video footage recorded at the filling station. Police media spokesman, SSP Prishantha Jayakody told the media last Saturday the sleuths were able to pick up a message from her mobile phone at Kandy. Thereafter, the Kandy police was alerted to be on the lookout for the doctor. But they too could not locate her. The lady doctor had travelled all the way to Anuradhapura that night and had checked into a well-known Pilgrims Rest all by herself. She had spent three days at the pilgrims Rest while several teams of police officers from the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) and from the Matara police were searching for her. The newspapers chronicled her story and her photographs on the front pages. The manager of the pilgrims rest on seeing the photograph in the newspapers was shocked beyond words that the woman the police had been looking for had checked into a room there. He then informed the Anuradhapura police that a woman resembling the picture published in newspapers had checked into his pilgrims rest three days ago. Later, a police team began to question her and informed the Colombo Crime Division.

The doctor had said that she decided to check into the pilgrims rest alone as she needed a rest. All's well that ends well. “She did not commit any offence and we advised her to seek psychiatric treatment if she needs any,” a senior police officer said.