Woman who went missing during 88/89 uprising returns home after 25 years

A woman who allegedly went missing during the 1988-89 insurrection in Sri Lanka when she was just 18 year old has reportedly returned to her home in Giraulla, Gampola after 25 years, a period during which she was held against her will and made to slave at a house. 

Ada Derana reporter said that her family had even collected compensation paid for missing persons by the Ihala Korale Divisional Secretariat. 

Padma Kumari, who is now 43 years old, says that her family gave her in marriage when she was 18 and that she was living in the Thohomada area with her husband, during the uprising in 89. 

She says that around 3 months after her marriage, three men with masked faces had entered their home, abducted her husband and murdered him at a tea estate. 

 Kumari said she returned to her parents’ home after her husband’s final rites were carried out and that that around three days later she had received a call from one of her husband’s relatives, who invited her to their home in Nawalapitiya. 

After she had agreed and visited the home, she was one day asked to accompany her husband’s cousin sister to Colombo to visit the Viharamahadevi Park.

However, Kumari says she was taken to a house in Colombo instead and handed over to a family, who kept her against her as “a slave.” 

Kumari says she had no freedom for 25 years and that she was made to wake up at 5.00am everyday to start working. She says that she was made to do all house chores and also take care of the children in the family. 

Kumari says that several years later she heard them talking about her father passing away and when she had requested to go back home, she was verbally abused and prevented from leaving. Similarly she was not allowed to attend any of the other funerals in her family. 

After being kept away from her family for more than 25 years, Kumara returned to her ancestral home in Gampola on January 17. She was admitted to the Nawalapitiya Hospital and returned home after being discharged today (19). 

She had lodged a complaint against her captives with Nawalapitiya Police demanding justice whiel she says that she was held captive at a house located between Delkanda and Kottawa. 

However, the Nawalapitiya Police Station has notified the Kottawa Police Station regarding the complaint while further investigations are ongoing.