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Dead witness described councillor’s fury
View(s):Found dead in mysterious circumstances, the dead witness to the notorious act of bullying by a provincial councilor who ordered a teacher to kneel before him in public tellingly described the councillor standing next to the crying teacher, shouting at everyone.
The body of Rajakaruna Abeyratne Mudiyanselage Punyasoma Bandara, a resident of Nawagaththegama, was found in a well on Friday. Police are investigating whether he died of murder or suicide. He had been missing for several days.
Dead men do not talk: Police at the site of the well where the body was found. Pic by Hiran Priyankara Jayasinghe
Speaking to the Sunday Times in June last year after former Wayamba Provincial Councillor Ananda Sarath Kumara menaced teacher Priyani Susila Herath, Mr. Bandara said some students had come running to him, asking him to call their parents to come and pick them from school immediately.
He said he hurried to the school to see what the matter was.
“I ran to the school and the council member was there, shouting at people to go away. I saw that next to him was Ms. Susila (the teacher who was made to kneel) crying and quite shaken.
“When he (Kumara) saw me looking he asked me if I could not understand what he said and after a while left the school premises,” he said.
Kumara was sacked by the SLFP for his actions, which hit the headlines. In May he was ordered to pay Ms. Herath Rs. 300,000 in compensation, fined Rs. 50,000 and given a suspended sentence of two years rigorous imprisonment.
The now-dead witness spoke of Ms. Herath, as being very honest, respectable and hardworking. “She is the first to come to school every day and when she comes she waters the plants and offers flowers to the Buddha. Since she is charge of the school radio club she plays very soothing and child appropriate music that even I enjoy,” he said.
Ms. Herath, who was the teacher in charge of discipline in Navagattegama Navodya School, had directed prefects to lengthen the uniform skirt of Kumara’s daughter, decreeing it was too short.
The aggrieved politician accused the teacher of humiliating his daughter and made her kneel in front of him and ask for forgiveness for her actions.
Ms Herath told the Sunday Times that she recalled the incident as one of the most humiliating and dreadful experiences she faced in her life.