Paramilitary cadre arrested for rape, murder of girl

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 August 2004, 12:16 GMT]
Vavuniya Police Tuesday found the skeletal remains of a girl who was allegedly raped and murdered by a member of a paramilitary working with the Sri Lanka army. The girl's skeleton was found, still bound and gagged, in the toilet of an abandoned house in Sithamparapuram on information by three men, including the paramilitary cadre, who were arrested on suspicion Monday. Two skeletons were found Monday in the village, 14 kilometres southeast of Vavuniya.

Vavuniya judge Manickavagar visited the spot and recorded the statements of the girl's mother and sister. The clothes found near the skeleton were identified by the girl's mother Ms. Neelavathi as those belonging to her daughter Ms. Selvam Bavani, 19.

The girl's sister Ms. Luxmi also identified the clothes.

Police said the main suspect, Mr.Mendis Thilak Rajah, a member of the EPRLF (Varathar Faction), had confessed that he raped her by threatening her when he had found the girl with her boy friend in the abandoned house in the Old Housing scheme in Sithamparapuram. He had later blackmailed and threatened her that she should come to the house again. He had raped and strangled her to death with a rope when she tried to resist him, Police said.

Thilak Rajah had then threatened two persons to help him dump the girl's body in the toilet pit of the abandoned house.

The paramilitary cadre confessed he had sold the girl's jwellery for 6500 rupees (65 USD).