Two wives come to take his body for burial

A case where two women fought to claim the body of a deceased, a hotel staffer who died at the Kegalle Hospital, had been reported.

A person who came to work in a hotel in the Nittambuwa town 18 years ago had an affair with a young woman from the Warakapola area and they had been living together, according to police. They had lived together for over 15 years under one roof when the man suddenly got sick a few years ago and a part of his leg had to be amputated.

Ignoring his disability, the woman he was living with looked after him to the best of her ability. On the 6th of March he was taken ill and was admitted to the base hospital in Warakapola but was later transferred to the Kegalle General Hospital as his health had deteriorated, a spokesman of the hospital said.

He passed away last Monday (11) and the ‘wife’ of the deceased was making arrangements to take the body home for burial. Unfortunately, things were about to get a little complicated. It turned out that the deceased was married earlier to a woman from Kuruwita. On hearing about her husband’s death she had come to the Kegalle hospital and requested to take his body home to Kuruwita so that a burial could take place. Since there were now two women wanting to take over the body for burial the police were needed to make sure that the right person got the body for burial. This was after the woman who looked after him for over 15 years began wailing and requested that she be given the right to attend to his funeral arrangements. However, there was one big problem. She was not legally married to him and therefore did not possess a marriage certificate to show when asked by police to prove that she was his wife. Steps were therefore taken to hand over the body to his legal wife who took it back home to Kuruwita for burial.