The girl was staring at the wall clock in her tiny home, it was shortly past 2.00am and several hours later she would be fighting for her life.
It all began the previous day when she had slipped out of the house while her mother and six-year-old brother were fast asleep on the family’s single bed.
The girl’s father, a person of special needs and with a loss of memory had left the family several years ago forcing her mother to perform menial work to keep the home fires alight.
Unknown to her mother, the 16-year-old schoolgirl who had been preparing for the G.C.E Ordinary Level Examination at the local village school in Wirawila had maintained a clandestine love affair with a neighbor eight years older in age.
Paddy field
As events would later unfold the girl had secretly left the home that night for a tryst with her so-called lover in a paddy field in close proximity of the family home.
It was to be a night of horror for the teenager who had all along believed that her secret lover was genuine in his intentions but this was not to be the case on this day.
At the meeting spot on that night the girl was not only met by her lover but confronted by three of his associates’ as well and the group were in an intoxicated state.
One thing led to another and the girl was led by the group to a home a short distance away from the paddy field where the occupants were out at that time.
The house belonged to one person who was part of the group that had escorted the girl from the paddy field.
Sordid incident
On reaching this house the men took turns at raping her and the entire sordid incident was recorded on smart phones with the intent of blackmailing the victim should she refuse to comply with future services whenever requested by the group.
The next morning the shattered teenager informed her mother that she would not be attending school that day and complained of a severe headache.
However she told her mother that she would study some homework perched on a kohomba tree at the back yard of their home.
This is the place the girl usually chooses to study and read in her spare time and this is also the place where she chose to die.
As she left her home and proceeded towards the tree the mother failed to see the worn out sari that was cleverly concealed on her person.
A short while later a piercing scream ripped through the morning calmness. The scream belonged to the girl’s younger brother.
The little boy had taken a pale of water for the family’s cow that was tethered in the back yard when he stumbled onto a terrifying site…..his sister was dangling motionless from a branch of the kohomba tree.
Neighbours rushed to the scene and among them were the girl’s secret lover and alleged rapist of the previous night who also helped in bringing the teenager down from the tree.
Suicide note
Not only that, the suspect also volunteered to ride in the same vehicle that was transporting the dying girl to hospital while feigning his innocence.
However this was to be shortlived as he received a phone call from another member of the gang who informed him to flee since the girl had left a suicide note providing all explicit details mentioning names, addresses, locations and so on.
There could be no escape for the victim’s lover and his friends and coming up with an excuse he got out the vehicle and fled into the Yala Forest Reserve along with the other suspects only to be apprehended the same night by a vigilante squad made up of young men from the same village.
The girl breathed her last while in intensive care three days later and was buried in a make-shift grave yard some hundred metres away from her home.
No coffin
The family could not even afford to purchase a coffin for the girl prompting a regional politician to step in and help out towards this end.
The suspects were subsequently arrested and remanded and criminal charges were brought against them in court.
The incident that sent shockwaves in this quiet and village took place in late 2019.