Kondaya's story ....

By now a dialogue has come up as to how another similar occurence of the type of murder of raping Seya Sandewmi of Kotadeniyawa which rocked the

Though murdering Seya Sandewmi is certainly a sorrowful incident, the social dialogue which she left behind in relation to this problem is no doubt a significant one.  Once again inquiring into information streaming in with regard to this 33 year old individual by the name of Dunesh Priyashantha alias Kondaya would turn out to create access to an important dialogue.

According to what Kodaya's mother says, Kondaya's father too is a robber. After the mother gave birth to 4 children, the father had got imprisoned.  This person had died also in prison. Kondaya's mother who became isolated with one daughter and 3 sons had strived so much to bring them up. This mother has had no financial means to give them an education as such. Kondaya the second of the children though admitted to school had been only in the first form and because he cut school his education came to a standstill from the second class, the mother had said. Other than following in the father's footsteps by taking upto robbery, boys of Kondaya's family had no other way to turn to.

Kondaya's elder brother who was subjected to suspicion by police right at the start was one who had been in jail having got caught to several incidents of housebreaking some years before this. After being released from prison though he had got into the occupation of cutting bricks and then having got married, he too had got together with his brother Kondaya on certain occasions and had got involved in various unauthorized activities. Kondaya's sister is someone who criticised this type of work. She had got married and had lived close to Seya Sandewmi's house and had constantly been finding fault with the brothers' activities. Kondaya too had found his mode of earning by engaging in labour-work and had in turn living at his mother's place and the sister's place.

Some months prior to this he had abducted a girl from Balawathugoda area and had attempted to molest her; but after his attempt misfired, he had abandoned her alone in a cemetery because the villagers had created a big roar in the process. Since it was difficult for him to live anymore in his mother's house in Balawathugoda, without living there further, he had shifted to his sister's house and was working in an oil mill in Batakanda area. during the past.

Kondaya has noted Seya Sandewmi playing in the swing on a number of times in the compound when walking along the gravel road closeby. Kondaya who had a low mentality had for some time been feeling a love for her at heart.  Having come to a conclusion of kidnapping the small one a few days back, what he had done first of all was to remove the girl's clothing and to keep gazing, it was revealed at his confession. Such were his twisted desires.

The information given out by Kondaya's mother is as follows: "He can't read or write.  He couldn't study also. Even from his small days he was in the jungle. He wasn't even interested in brushing his teeth or washing his face. He was living with whatever labour-work he used to get. Till his age was 30 years outsiders didn't tell me any stories. But all these things started happening during the past 3 years. People used to come and tell me that he he keeps watching at girls in their houses .... that he looks through the windows on the sly. Sometimes he had got caught to people and got beaten up. He got thoroughly beaten up recently for having kept watching where girls were bathing at bathing-spots.  I also know that he takes away underwears of women.  When people come to tell these things I just can't face the embarassment.

Some days back I was not told that this child was murdered. That day when the police came, he ran away from the back door. I wasn't told anything about it. Because that was his nature .... what I thought was he's hiding like this to escape problems of girls. People are scolding me saying, you haven't brought him up properly. Oh god ... what can I do? This fellow didn't listen to anything that I told. At times he's terribly brash".

Kondaya has been dubbed the name Kondaya because he had not taken any interest in cutting his hair for years and was someone who grew his hair. For those who saw him he was an unpleasant character. Though he made fun at girls they had never cared about him because of his unpleasantness. It is learned that Kondaya did not even have male friends either. On the whole he has spent a life of a lonely bushman-type of life. His life is also marked by his behaviour of grabbing at anything in the jungle and eating it and jumping into the river and catching fish and then eating them raw; typical of a savage-life. Nobody really knows whether he is in the jungle, at his sister's or at his mother's house.

Kondaya who had no value of his life was someone who was suffering from being pushed away thoroughly from society; a person who came down to a low level of even exhuming the dead body of a woman whom he couldn't get close to in real life and subsequently engage in raping her after that. The number of times his sister and mother had to face pressure because of problems he brought upon his ownself for having peeped at women on the sly were numerous in number.

His sister had mentioned in the presence of the police some das back that this murder would have been committed by Kondaya and she had assisted in arresting him. Even neighbours of Seya Sadewmi have no wrong impression about Kondaya's sister as such. What she told in the presence of her husband addressing the media was that as Kondaya did this, he should be done away with and not in the normal way .... but he should be hanged after he be made to suffer.

The question that crops up once again is whether the problem would be solved by simply doing away with this kind of people of a distorted foolish mentality. It is nevertheless the duty of authorities to settle the socio-economic environment at the earliest and hastily too in order to prevent such characters rear their head in future.