Probe continues in hotel murder case:

Suspect remanded

by Jayampathy JAYASINGHE

The man who is alleged to have killed his newly wedded wife by slashing her throat with a knife after getting her drunk at their hotel room in Kollupitiya was identified by sleuths of the Colombo Crime Division (CCD), when they found the marriage certificate of the couple and a telephone number, in a bag in their hotel room, police sources told the Sunday Observer.

The sleuths after entering the room found her body in a decomposed state lying on the bed with her throat slashed. When police showed the woman’s passport to hotel employees they identified her as the woman who had checked in a week ago. When police tried to contact the telephone number found in the woman’s bag they found it switched off. The deceased was identified as Sudarshani Shakila Kanagasabai, a UK resident who was on a honeymoon.

The breakthrough came while the autopsy was in progress at the Colombo morgue. Inspector Duminda Kulasekera received a telephone call from a person making inquiries about Sudarshani. It was then the police realised that the deceased had relatives in Sri Lanka. The caller who was later summoned to the Kollupitiya police admitted that the deceased was his sister. He further said that she had married a Tamil businessman Gnanachandran from Colombo on February 19. The name in the marriage certificate also confirmed that Gnanachandran had married Sudarshani Shakila Canagasabai. When police went in search of Gnanachandran at his relatives home at Kollupitiya, he had left the house already.

According to police sources the suspect had stabbed her several times with a knife used to slice apple following an argument.

Meanwhile sleuths also found that Sudarshani was married twice and was a divorcee, and that Gnanachandran too was married earlier and his wife, a mother of three children had died in a gas explosion at their home in Chennai, India in November 2011.

On a tip off received by the OIC, Kollupitiya, Chief Inspector Mangala Dehideniya, the suspect was arrested by the CCD sleuths near a hospital in Kollupitiya.

The suspect was produced before Fort Magistrate and remanded till 8th March, until investigations are completed. The investigation is being supervised by the Director of the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) Superintendent of Police, D.A. Ranaweera.