SSP’s wife to be arrested, discharged son from hospital remanded

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 August 2009, 17:14 GMT]
A special police team has been deployed to arrest the wife of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Vass Gunawardene and she is to be produced before a Magistrate Tuesday at any time in connection with the alleged assault of a SLIT student, police spokesman Ranjit Gunasekara told media Tuesday. The Director of Kalubowila Hospital Dr. Anil Jayasinghe told media that Ravindu, son of SSP Vass Gunawardene and the chief suspect in the alleged assault of the student has been discharged from the hospital and was taken to remand prison.

Already eleven policemen were remanded by Kaduwala Magistrate in connection with the alleged assault of the SLIT student Nipuna.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told Parliament Tuesday that the good work done by the police during the campaign to crush terrorism had been tarnished as a result of the incident involving IT student Nipuna Ramanayake and the Angulana shooting where two youths arrested by the police were later found dead and their bodies dumped on the road.

The Premier also assured parliament that the government had no intention whatsoever of protecting those responsible for these crimes.

SSP Vass Gunawardene before being appointed as the Director of Colombo Crimes Division (CCD) was serving in Trincomalee district as a SSP.

At that time he was in charge of the inquiry into the abduction and killing of Jude Varsha, a six-year-old girl student of Trincomalee St. Mary’s College that shook the whole country.

All the suspects arrested in connection with the killing were later killed by the police on the pretext that they were shot dead when they attempted to fire at the police while being taken for inquiry.

Hence Varsha’s murder inquiry came to a close thereafter and no case was filed in the court, sources said.