Suspect arrested over murder of garment factory worker

An accused wanted in connection with the murder of a 23-year-old woman was taken into custody by Polonnaruwa Police.

The victim L.m.g.g.ayesha Kausalya Madukali, was a garment factory worker in the area and the suspect a fellow employee. She had been in love with the suspect who was already married and father of a child.

The young woman, who left the factory after work on April 10, had gone missing and the Pulasthipura Police conducted investigations of her father’s complaint for about a month and arrested her lover on suspicion.

The suspect under interrogation revealed that he took her to a shrub jungle near an abandoned paddy field in Laxauyana in Polonnaruwa, stabbed her to death and burnt the body. He stated that she often quarreled with him and that it led to the killing.

During further investigations the police recovered the burnt skeletal remains of a body, a pair of slippers, a gold ring, and an ear stud, suspected to be those of the deceased. Her father identified the pair of slippers and the ear stud as those of his daughter.

The suspect was produced before Polonnaruwa Magistrate Asela De Silva and remanded till May 28.

A police team under OIC Crime Investigation Branch CI Buddhika Gunasekara is conducting further investigations on the instructions of HQI Polonnaruwa Police CI M.s.m.jarool, SP Tissa Lal De Silva, and SSP Dhammika Weerasekara.