News
Injured boy’s mother beaten by employer when she asked for leave
View(s):The mother of the 16-year-old boy who died tragically after being impaled on a stick after falling from a tree, had to endure beatings from her Kuwaiti employer and borrow money from a friend to make it back home to see her son who was in hospital critically injured.
The victim, Ileperumage Thushara Indunil Lakshan
Her son , Ileperumage Thushara Indunil Lakshan (16) of Galhena, Bulathsinhala died on Friday from the serious injuries he suffered when a sharp stick pierced his neck as he fell from a mango tree he had climbed to pluck some fruit.
The coroner’s court inquiry into his death revealed the plight of his mother Kawralage Chandrawathie (48), who gave evidence before Iresha Deshani Samaraweera, Additional Inquirer into Sudden Deaths.
At the time of the tragedy, Chandrawathie had been working as a housemaid in Kuwait, she said, in order to save money to build a house for the victim, the fifth and youngest of her children.
While she learnt of the incident through a news broadcast on a Sri Lankan TV channel and called home the family members were reluctant to tell her the seriousness of the incident fearing she would panic.
However as she was anxious to see her son, she had approached her employer but the family she was working for in Kuwait refused to believe the story of the accident and allegedly, had beaten her when she asked for leave.
It was from another Sri Lankan maid living close by in Kuwait that Chandrawathie had borrowed money for the trip home.
G.W. Gihan Kalhara (13), who witnessed the accident said that last Tuesday (October 27) the victim, his relative, went to pluck mangoes with him.
The victim had been atop the tree for about five minutes before he fell on the stick and was impaled on it.
G.W. Pathmasiri, an uncle of the victim said he was in his paddy field on the morning of the day when, sometime before the accident, Thushara (the victim) came to give him a mango and left to pluck some more.
Hearing of the accident Pathmasiri had run to the spot. It was he who had stopped attempts by the people assembled there to remove the stick, he said.
The teenager was initially taken to the Bulathsinhala District Hospital and later to the Horana Base Hospital. Afterwards he was taken to the Colombo National Hospital where, though the stick was removed, the victim had succumbed on Friday to his injuries.
The body was released on the same day with orders that it should not to be cremated. The body is to be buried at the Bulathsinhala cemetery today (01). (CS)