Ishalini’s body to be exhumed

By A.J.A. Abeynayake

Colombo Additional Magistrate Rajindra Jayasuriya yesterday remanded the wife of former minister Rishad Bathiudeen and three others until Aug 09 in connection with the suspicious death of a teenage domestic worker who had been employed at their home.

 The four defendants, including Bathiudeen’s father-in-law, brother-in-law and the broker who had brought the girl for employment there from Dayagama, were produced before the court when the case was taken up.

The court also ordered the exhumation of the body of the victim and a fresh postmortem. 

Shabdheen Ayesha, the 46-year-old wife of MP Bathiudeen, her father Mohamed Shabdheen and a broker named Ponnaiyah Pandaram, were arrested by police on July 23 following the recording of their statements regarding the death.

Police obtained a court order for detaining for 72 hours for interrogation.

The brother-in-law of MP Bathiudeen was arrested on July 23 on charges of allegedly sexually abusing a young woman.

Investigating officers uncovered that the MP’s brother-in-law had sexually abused a female who worked as a domestic helper at Bathudeen’s official residence when he was a minister of the yahapalana government.

On July 15, a 16-year-old girl, who was serving as domestic help at the Bathiudeen residence, succumbed to severe burn injuries while receiving treatment at the Colombo National Hospital. She had been under medical care for 12 days since her admission to the hospital on July 03.

The girl, who was from Dayagama, had been brought to the parliamentarian’s residence at Bauddhaloka Mawatha for domestic work last October.

The judicial medical officer who conducted the post-mortem on the girl’s death concluded that she had been sexually exploited.