When Iragala falls, the villagers enter the houses and break the doors. Guards were taken from every place where they thought they could escape from outside.... They had to spend every night and day between sleep and sleeplessness while not remembering a day of sleeping at night.
This is not a series of events in a novel. Seven years ago, a series of events took place in Ratnapura's Kotaketana area. Due to the continuing terror in the area when the devil, who was suspected to have been sleeping, was awake, the village had to set up police checkpoints and army teams all over the village. Even though the police and the army walked around the village,
two women of the village were killed in a way that no one could imagine.
The incident that brought the double murder wave of women to its peak in Kotaketana and led to a controversy was the murder of mother and daughter named Nayana Nilmini (52) and Kavindya Chaturangi Sellahewa (17). It was January 31, 2012. With that incident, not only Ratnapura but the whole country was gripped with fear.
A few days after this crime, Ashoka Chandani Kumari alias Batti, who lived next to the house where the murdered mother and daughter resided, her husband Lokugamhewege Darshana alias Raju and another three-wheeler driver were arrested by the police.
There was no trial before the court against the tricycle driver. But no one knows what happened to him even today. The Attorney General filed a case against Ashoka Chandani Kumari alias Batti and her husband Lokugamhewege Darshana alias Raju.
Considering this incident to be exceptional, a case was filed against the defendants directly before the Ratnapura High Court without holding a preliminary evidentiary hearing based on the powers of the Attorney General, and later on the request of the Attorney General, the case was transferred to the Colombo High Court.
In the year 2014, the trial against the defendant Raju Namatta and his wife, Batti, was started by the Colombo High Court Judge, Mrs. Kusala Sarojani Weerawardena, and then the trial was continued before the Colombo High Court Judge, Mr. Vikum Kaluarachchi.
According to the evidence presented there, Ashoka Chandani Kumari alias Batti, who was held in remand without bail for 05 years in connection with this incident, was acquitted on July 25, 2018 without summoning the accused.
So where are the criminals? Everyone in the country had a problem.
Although Batti was acquitted, the case against her husband Raju was further examined before Colombo High Court Judge Mr. Vikum Kaluarachchi. For another year, the judge asked the facts that Raju submitted for his release and the judge took into account the evidence of 05 witnesses who testified on behalf of the accused and 23 case materials and documents that had been presented to the court. Before that, the testimony of 53 witnesses who testified on behalf of the plaintiffs and 149 case materials and documents were taken into consideration.
Colombo High Court Judge Mr. Wikum Kaluarachchi, who addressed the court at the beginning of announcing the 221-page judgment issued in relation to this murder incident, stated that this was the most tiring judgment in his 25-year judicial life and had to be spent a lot of time.
Before writing this judgment, he had to read four or five times the more than 3000 pages of witness notes that were presented as evidence in this case and it is his duty as a judge to deal with the legal issues and with proper understanding and attention to whether the evidence is compared with other evidence. The judge also emphasized that responsibility.
The judge, who had written the judgment like a novel written by a highly skilled novelist, read the 221-page judgment for over an hour.
The judge began pronouncing the verdict by emphasizing that the relatives of the women who died in this incident who have come to the court seeking justice, as well as the defendant who is waiting for a decision between life and death based on the presumption of innocence, will fulfill their duty in a proper manner.
The judge stated that there is no one who witnessed the killing of Nayana Nilmini and Kavindya Chaturangi, the mother and daughter, and that this case is based entirely on circumstantial evidence. Mr. Ruwan Ileperuma, an expert from 'Genetech', made a special contribution to the justice in this case. Stating that he had submitted a 1000-page report, the court expressed confidence in the 100 percent accuracy of the reports issued by 'Genetech'.
In a case based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, the ability to come to a conclusion about the probability of an incident by observing the way the witnesses testify before the court and their posture, as well as the scientific condition of a case based on experimental evidence, when the facts match properly, who is the proper criminal? The ability to identify whether and its scientificity was also analyzed by the judge.
On a day in February 2012, Mr. Nimal Wickramanayake, who was the Station Commander of the Kahawatta Police, received information that there was a naked body of a young girl in a drain in 'Opatha Watte'.
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