Living With Violence: Rape & Murder In Jaffna

By Thanges Paramsothy –May 15, 2015

Thanges Paramsothy

On 14th May 2015, morning around 8.30 am, a domestic servant who came telling an incident of rape and murder of a student studying advanced levels in Pungudutivu Maha Vidiyalam. The landlord, eighty years old lady, was listening to the incident scolding the unknown person/s who committed the crime. I came out of my room and listen to her. She explained the incident as follow:

“An eighteen years old student, S. Vidhiya, went to school on 13th May 2015 from her home. She did not return home after the school. As she did not return home in the evening, Vidhiya’s brother went to the school in search of her. He got to know that she did not attend the school. Her brother with their relatives was searching her. They did not find her immediately. They eventually reported about her disappearance to the local police and kept searching her. The next day early morning, on the way to the school from her home, her bicycle was found. One of her shoes was found near her bicycle and other was in another place. Her dead body was found inside the bush in Vallan, ward-10 in Pungudutivu. Her each leg was separately tied up in two separate trees. Her hands were tied together keeping behind her head. She was raped and then murdered.” She finished telling the incident and started doing her usual work in her landlord’s home.

Photo: by Thanges Paramsothy, students protesting against the murder of the fellow student in Pungudutivu

The incident quite disturbed me. I wanted to obtain further information about this incident so that I decided to visit the place of the incident. When I went there, it was bit late. Police were present in the area. Nobody was allowed to see the body. However, people after getting to know about this have visited the place and seen the body before the police came. It seemed that the body was in a terrible condition according to the people’s expression. Even though people were not allowed to see the body after the present of the police, they were on the lane talking about this with anger, fear and suspicion. After a while, the body was taken away from the scene.Read More