Of rape, killings, impunity and our Collective Amnesia
Images provided by WATCHDOG
As women’s rights groups and activists mark International Women’s Day tomorrow (8th) and the month of March as ‘Dark March’[1], we hope that we can take a long, hard, reflective look at ourselves and our actions and decide to join the long, hard struggle to end violence against women and children in Sri Lanka.
The rape and killing of little Harishnavi
On the 16th of February, 2016 afternoon, 13 year old Kankatharan Harishnavi, was found raped and killed at her home in Ukkulankulam, Vavuniya. A bright young student of Vipulananda Vidyalayam, Vavuniya, Harishnavi had stayed home from school that day as she was feeling slightly unwell, and had complained to her mother that her new uniform was too short for her. As the school bell had rung by then, and her mother who was also a teacher at the school had to leave for school, she had told Harishnavi to stay indoors, and left for school with her two other children (aged 15 and 10), at about 7.50am.
As her mother’s time-table had been quite full, she was unable to come home before the end of the day, so when she came home after school around 2.15pm and was parking her bike, her son had walked into their home and run out shouting for their mother to go inside and see what had happened to his sister. When the mother had run inside, she’d seen her daughter standing upright, about a foot off the floor, with a saree wrapped loosely around her neck, with the other end tied to the roof. Thinking that her child was just playing around and trying to scare her, she had immediately removed the saree, at which point her daughter’s body had fallen to the floor. The mother had immediately picked her up and laid her down on the bed assuming that she had fainted, whilst instructing her son to go fetch help to take Harishnavi to the hospital. Meanwhile a doctor from a nearby private clinic had come and checked on her and pronounced her dead.
Thereafter, the Police had appeared on the scene and carried out inquiries, and the Coroner had come and checked the body and taken it from the house. There had been some bite/teeth marks on her stomach.
Clothes and books were strewn all over the floor and the wall clock had fallen to the floor and stopped at 11.30. There had been no chairs or anything she could have climbed onto to tie herself to the roof said the family, when people speculated that she might have committed suicide. The family had also found a plate of food served, mixed together and left untouched on the kitchen floor, with all the pots and pans still with their lids off, almost as if Harishnavi had been called out by someone, the family said. When the neighbours were asked if they had heard any noise, they said they had not heard anything.
