Sunday Times 2

Some young readers of the Sunday Times have requested me to write about the Kataragama beauty queen murder that took place over 50 years ago. This was a murder most gruesome.

Premawathi Manamperi was a young woman of 22 years from Kataragama. She had passed the GCE Ordinary Level examination with distinction and was recognised among the Kataragama folk as an educated and intelligent girl. She had chosen to take up the Dharmacharya examination and passed it with equal distinction. This qualified her to work as a Dhamma (Buddhist philosophy) teacher at the Kataragama Dhamma School.

In 1970, at a New Year Festival in Kataragama, she was crowned the beauty queen. Many were the young men who passionately eyed her. The Kataragama Police officer-in-charge (OIC), Sub-Inspector (SI) Jayasiri Udawatte, had the privilege of greeting her on stage. Udawatte was a handsome young man, and his lustful yearnings had not escaped the discerning Premawahti. A few days later, the OIC had met Premawathi and proposed to her. She had turned him down pronto. He had pursued trying to meet her on several occasions but to no avail.  This had been too much for Udawatte’s ego. He had backed out saying alright we’ll see. Lustful love had to revenge.

When the JVP insurrection broke out on April 5, 1971, Kataragama had been a hive of rebel activity. The Kataragama Police Station under SI Udawatte had been attacked by insurgents and the police had withdrawn from Kataragama.

On April 11, 1971, Colonel Derrick Nugawela had been appointed Military Commanding Officer of the Hambantota District. He had organised the military units in the area to counter the insurgents and reestablish government control in the district. Having entered and established control of the town of Tissamaharama, a platoon of troops from the Gemunu Watch led by Lieutenant Alfred Wijesuriya, a volunteer officer, had been detailed to Kataragama on April 16. They had entered Kataragama and established camp at the Kataragama Pilgrims’ Rest without any opposition. SI Udawatte and his policemen had been moved to the army camp as the police station had been damaged in the attacks.

On the same day (April 16), SI Udawatte accompanied by three police constables visited the home of Premawathi in a jeep and arrested her and several other girls on the grounds they were rebels, and took them to the army camp.

At the camp, Premawathi was tortured throughout the night and was questioned about her involvement with the rebels, but to no avail. Infuriated by her denials, Lt. Wijesururiya made Premawathi take off her clothes, and walk across the town nude with her hands raised up, while being beaten by him and an army volunteer named Amaradasa Ratnayake. She had been made to walk in this manner towards Kataragama town, and was shot near the post office.

When they returned to bury her, she was still alive. Lt. Wijesuriya ordered a man named Aladdin from Kataragama to bury her alive. On seeing Aladdin from her grave, she had taken off her earrings and given it to him requesting it be handed to her mother to be given to her sister. Shortly afterwards, a soldier had approached her and shot her in the head with a rifle and she had died from the bullet to her head.

Although Col. Nugawela and Lt. Wijesuriya had believed they enjoyed impunity over their atrocities under Emergency Regulations, things changed when there was a hue and cry throughout the country over the gruesome murder of the Kataragama beauty queen. Her body was exhumed on May 24 and an inquest held by the Hambantota Magistrate. The case was later referred to the Galle Criminal Court and was heard by Supreme Court Judge D.Q.M. Sirimanne.

The first accused, Lt. Wijesuriya, and the second accused, army volunteer Ratnayake, were found guilty of attempted murder of Premawathi by shooting her with machine guns on April 17, 1971. They appealed against the conviction but the conviction was upheld.

The main submission of the first accused was that the factual situation that existed at Kataragama on April 17 1971 justified the shooting of Premawathi during a period of combat. He also submitted that he was only carrying out the order of his superior officer, Col. Nugawela, to “bump off” the prisoners. The second accused Ratnayake submitted that he was carrying out the order of the first accused, his superior officer.

In the Appeal Court judgement, it was held that the question as to whether there was a period of combat on April 17, 1971, (which really had not been the situation) was not relevant because in either case there was no justification for shooting a prisoner in custody. Section 100 of the Army Act requires a person subject to military law to obey only the lawful commands given by his superior officers. It is not applicable to a command which is obviously unlawful. Moreover, officers holding custody of prisoners are duty bound to ensure their safety.

The two accused were sentenced to 16 years rigorous imprisonment in 1973. Col. Wijesuriya died of a heart attack a year later in prison. Later, in 1988, after Ratnayake had served his prison term, he was killed in his home in Devinuwara by a suspected JVP hit team – the usual opportunist work of the JVP, trying to drag Premawathi’s name into its fold.

I have since verified from Retd. SSP Upali Seneviratne who was OIC of the Counter Insurgent Bureau in 1971, if Premawathi Manamperi was implicated in JVP activities during the 1971 insurrection. According to him there had not been an iota of evidence of her involvement with the JVP, leave alone the attacks on the Kataragama Police Station.

The punishments meted out to the accused do not commensurate the precious life of Premawathi Manamperi who was a beacon of hope for the younger generation.

This whole episode is the culmination of unquenched lust on the part of a police officer and sadism most cruel on the part of an army officer.

(The writer is a Retired Senior Superintendent of Police. He can be contacted at seneviratnetz@gmail.com
- TP 077 44 751 44)

 

No comment – and don’t quote me on that

What should development aid do?