COLOMBO (News 1st); Detectives investigating the death of 16-year-old Jude Kumar Ishalini, who died while employed at the residence of Ex-Minister Rishad Bathiudeen, have made a startling discovery.
Detective have carefully inspected the room the deceased was staying in and discovered a series of ENGLISH letters that form a sentence with a TAMIL meaning on one of the walls, said Police Spokesperson Senior DIG Ajith Rohana on Tuesday (03).
The Police Spokesperson said the meaning of the sentence is ‘The Cause For My Death’.
A handwriting expert from the Government Analyst’s Department has visited the site for investigations while detectives have managed to recover several books used by Ishalini when she was going to school in order to determine if she wrote the sentence on the wall.
On Monday (02), the Police Spokesperson said that 11 women had previously served as domestic servants at former Minister Rishad Bathiudeen’s residence and three have died, including the 16-year old girl.
The second postmortem in respect of 16-year-old Jude Kumar Ishalini, the domestic aide who died while employed at Ex-Minister Rishad Bathiudeen’s residence, was performed for 09 hours on Saturday (31).
Police Spokesperson Senior DIG Ajith Rohana speaking to News 1st said that the second postmortem was carried out at the Peradeniya Teaching Hospital by three expert pathologists.
The members of the panel are :
01. Professor Jean Perera – Professor of Forensic Medicine at the Medical Faculty of the University of Colombo
02. Senior Lecturer Dr. Sameera Gunwardena – Head of the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology at the Medical Faculty of the University of Colombo
03. Dr. Prabhath Senasinghe – Consultant Judicial Medical Officer at the Peradeniya Teaching Hospital
The body was 16-year-old Jude Kumar Ishalini was exhumed on Friday (30) in the presence of the local magistrate and other law enforcement personnel.
Police Spokesperson Senior DIG Ajith Rohana speaking to News 1st said a CT scan was carried out on Saturday (31) to ascertain certain injuries and thereafter the postmortem was carried out.
The panel of experts had obtained samples from various parts of the body in order to obtain fresh laboratory reports.
The panel will announce their opinion and decision on the death of Jude Kumar Ishalini upon receiving all the laboratory reports.
The body will remain at the morgue of the Peradeniya Teaching Hospital until the postmortem report is released.
The Deputy Police Chief said investigations are underway and further investigations will be carried out based on the contents of the report of the second postmortem examination.
Police have so far arrested three suspects in connection with the death of the 16-year old girl at the Ex-Minister’s residence.
They are the Ex-Minister’s Wife, Father-in-Law, and a broker, Ponniah Bandaram alias Shankar, who has trafficked the girl for domestic work.
In addition, the brother-in-law of Ex-Minister Rishad Bathiudeen was arrested by Sri Lanka Police for committing rape.
A 22-year-old woman, one of the 11 women who had served as domestic aides and the residence, had expressed that she was raped at the official residence of the Ex-Minister in Colombo from 2015 to 2019.
The 44-year-old brother-in-law of Ex-Minister Bathiudeen was identified as the suspect and was arrested by the detectives.
On the 26th of July, court ordered for all four suspects to be placed in remand custody until the 09th of August 2021.
On that day, Deputy Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris pointed out to the court that the prosecution suspects the death was not suicide, but murder.
