by Dilrukshi Fernando
(May 30, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)The tears of joy were not only on the face of the family of Subasiraveen Ravindrakumar but also on a nation that was aghast at the abduction of the seven year old whose over 24 hour ordeal ended last evening after he was released near his house.
However along with the joy one feels for the family there remains the fear in all of us if in fact our own children are ever safe at school. As one school teacher put it its frightening to know that the culprits dared to come near the school entrance to abduct the child.
On Wednesday May 28 an intruder lurked outside the gates of Vivekananda College facing the A.H. Appuhamy Mawatha in Colombo 13. Unaware of his presence, seven year old Subasiraveen Ravindrakumar was chatting with two of his friends, waiting for his mother to come and collect him from school.
It was already 12.10 but she had still not arrived. Just then a man dressed in an orange shirt and blue trousers approached him. The three little boys had never seen him in their lives. They may have been a little surprised when he told Subasiraveen that he had come to take him home. Yet Subasiraveen had said that his mother will be here any moment. Then this man had told the boy that his mother was waiting in a three-wheeler and since she was feeling a little ill and sent him to pick the child from the school gate.
So Subasiraveen had gone willingly, believing this tale, for his mother had been ill with fever for the past two days. Little did he know that the journey from his school gate to the unknown trishaw would earn him the attention of the nation, aghast at the abduction of the seven year old boy from Kotahena. The Kotahena police had been informed immediately and had to rely on eye witness accounts of the two school boys who had seen this unknown man taking their friend away in a green coloured trishaw.
“We got to know of the abduction when the child’s mother Anusha Ravindrakumar came to school at about 1.30 pm saying her son had not come home,” Subasiraveen’s class teacher Sujitha said. Their house is in close proximity to the school and the journey takes only about ten minutes. Since she had been ill for the past few days, Anusha had informed a family friend whose sons also attend Vivekananda College, to collect her son from school. It was with them that Subasiraveen had waited outside the school gate when the abduction had taken place. When she was told that her friends’ children had seen her son getting into a three wheeler, she wailed loudly saying that someone had abducted him,” Sujitha added.
His classmates point out the handwork done by their friend who was abducted which hangs on the classroom wall beside theirs. “They are too small to know that their friend was missing but they had heard their elders talking about the incident at home. On Thursday morning they told me what they have heard,” she said. Sujitha expressed her concerns for the safety of her charges. “It is frightening to know that the culprits dared to come near the school entrance to abduct the child. Incidents like this instill fear in parents and children,” Sujitha said.
Subasiraveen lived with his mother, younger brother, his mother’s brother and grandmother on the third floor of an apartment complex at the Maha Vidyalaya Mawatha Colombo 13. His father who once owned a business near their home gave it up due to financial difficulties and migrated to London in search of greener pastures. However the Kotahena Police told the Colombo Magistrate that the boy’s father, Ravindrakumar, had been approached by a gang trying to extort money from him on two previous occasions. The gang had demanded Rs. 500,000 and Rs. 1,000,000 respectively on the two occasions after which he closed down his business and migrated fearing for his life.
The search begins for the mystery abductors
The Kotahena police had sent out a message island wide asking officers at roadblocks to be on the alert for a trishaw matching the description the boys had given. Having to depend on little children for eye witness accounts is another problem the police faced. Speaking to the Daily Mirror officers involved in the investigation said that evidence given by the children were not accurate as they changed details from time to time and at times merely agreed to points prompted by the police officers. “Because of this we got some experts in the field, female officers who specialize in the subject, to question the children,” Police said.
Adoption may not be the reason behind the abduction of the seven year old boy in Kotahena according to the Kotahena Police. Speaking to the Daily Mirror, OIC Crimes Division Athula Wijesinghe said since the boy has had a bypass operation in India last year adoption would not be the reason for abducting the child. “In past cases of child abductions we have noticed that children who have physically disabled or terminally ill are not taken by the culprits,” he said adding that the Police is still awaiting a response from the abductors.
The family too has no idea as to who may have been behind the abduction. “It is unusual for the abductors to delay calling even after 24 hours have passed. If they need a ransom they would have contacted the family by now but so far the child’s mother has not received any telephone calls,” OIC Wijesinghe said last morning, just hours before the boy was released. Owing to the previous cases of attempting to extort money from the child’s father, the Magistrate has instructed the Police to obtain details of telephone calls received by the complainant, Ravindrakumar’s wife Anusha, in the recent past. In the meantime, further investigations are being carried out into the case. “The child told us that he was kept at a house. And he mentioned some names randomly. But we didn’t tire him with questions for the time being,” OIC Kotahena Police Niranjan Abeywardena said adding they will continue questioning him slowly so as to not upset the little boy.
Now that the ordeal for the family is seemingly over, an investigation is on to identify the culprits and find their motive for the abduction before they make an attempt to strike again.
-Daily Mirror
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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