Soldier remanded over woman’s death

The soldier who was arrested on suspicion of the mysterious death of 26-year-old Dhanuka Madhuwanthi, a resident of Vilanagama, Ellekade in the Alawathugoda Police Division has been remanded until March 22 after being produced before the Kandy Magistrate’s Court on Sunday (12).

The 39-year-old soldier is a disabled person and he is engaged in light duty attached to an Army camp in Kandy.

“At about 2 a.m. on March 11, my daughter’s husband called me and told me that she was missing. Then we searched for our daughter together with people from the village. During that time, a person came and told us that she was lying in a paddy field. I thought she was alive. But when we went there, we discovered what had happened. We hope for justice to be meted out against those responsible for this crime.”

Dhanuka’s mother who was in tears said that it was hard to believe what had happened to her daughter and that the person who had committed this crime should be given maximum punishment.

The post-mortem examination of the dead woman was held on Sunday and the deceased’s husband and her father had identified the body during the post-mortem examination carried out by Chief Judicial Medical Officer S. Sivasubramaniam of the Kandy National Hospital, where it was concluded that the woman had been killed due to strangulation.

Later, her body was handed over to her husband. The funeral of Dhanuka Madhuwanthi was held yesterday at the family burial grounds.