![]()
Suspicion lurks about Seya Sandewmi's murder .... on father convicted of sexual abuse previously!
The point of suspicion that has cropped up in the minds of the police by now about the murder of Seya Sandewmi of Kotadeniyawa, Gampaha which incident shook the whole country with shock is indeed heartbreaking. It is something that a human being cannot believe at first notice. This is
because suspicious factors have emerged in relation to Sandewmi's father concerning this rape and murder of the child.The victimised child's dead body was recovered in a naked state near a canal and her neck was strangled with a banian. It is understood that the banian was worn by her. The only article found near her dead body was this article. There is a streak of suspicion that she had been raped within the house itself by the suspect because the frock that she had been wearing was found on the bed itself and her under garment too was found under the mattress where she was sleeping. What the police say is that though opinions were expressed that some outsider had jumped into the house from the window; no other clue can be detected.
When initial investigations were carried out regarding the crime by employing police dogs, after sniffing the girl's clothes the dog has gone a distance of about 200 metres and after turning back once again it had entered through the back door of the house which provoked the police to suspect that the person who committed the murder was someone in the house itself.
The child's father, Upul Shantha has served as an English teacher of a leading school in Negombo and during his spare time he had also engaged himself as a driver. He was someone who had been previously remanded on a charge of child abuse. Already a case relating to abuse is being heard against him at Negombo Magistrate Court as well as a another teacher who had aided and abetted him in that offence.
In the meantime, according to information provided by the villagers there, at the time the deceased child was conceived the child's father had been employed overseas and there had been several conflicts in the house by the child's legal father saying that this child's father was someone else. The police had interrogated both the father and mother of the deceased child for a lengthy period in relation to the incident. Further investigations are underway.