Wanduramba Police arrested an estate labourer, together with his brother and brother’s wife, in connection with the death of his wife, at Kurumini Banagalawa in Kokawala, Pilagodawatte, recently.
The suspects and the victims were all employed on the estate.
The deceased was identified as M. Wijayalakshmi (28). Following information of the incident, Wanduramba Police, after preliminary investigations, arrested her husband, K. Singhara Welu (32), and the two other suspects.
The victim’s daughters, aged six and eight, are in the custody of their grandfather (the victim’s father), at Pitadeniya in Wanduramba.
On the day of the incident, the victim and the suspects had received their wages from the Pilagoda Estate Superintendent. That night, the husband had gone to the village marketplace to buy bread for dinner and moonshine. Wijayalakshmi had allegedly consumed a little of the moonshine, over which the couple had quarrelled.
After investigations, police found she had been killed by strangling.
After a futile attempt to portray the death as suicide by hanging, the following morning the husband had informed the grama niladhari of the division about the death.
He told the officer that his wife went to bed as usual the previous night and had not woken up that morning. However, police investigated the incident further.
Acting Baddegama Magistrate Weerasiri Dias held the magisterial inquiry into the murder and ordered the body to be sent to the Karapitiya Teaching Hospital for postmortem.
On instructions from ASP Dulshan Nagahawatte, a team of investigators led by Wanduramba Police OIC Rukman Kumara is carrying out further investigations.
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