The magistrate court of Kaluthara yesterday directed the children of a suspected mother that attempted to drown her two years and eight month old son to be taken care of the Probation and Childcare Department. This mother said she had earlier attempted in vain to hand over this child to probation care. These officials that work less while withdrawing public money as salaries appear only after the horse bolted. No need to talk about the officials and the politicians that have the duty of monitoring these systems.
The murder suspect is a 30 year old woman and she was arrested and remanded. Police says that she has given a statement that she threw the child to the river after failing to abandon him near Kaluthara Bodhiya sacred shrine. The suspect is a single mother of five children that lived in a village for tsunami victims in Panadura and made living out of selling lottery tickets. She told to police that her husband abandoned her and she faced utmost difficulties in taking care of the five children. An enormous amount of tsunami aids were swindled by fraudulent elements of various social stratas while the women like this one did not see a better future.
She attempted to abandon the youngest child at Kaluthara Bodhiya sacred shrine. But the child came after her and she then fed him with some rice that she begged for the boy and herself. She was walking with the child along the rail bridge as the child fell asleep. Suddenly, this unfortunate women had a mind to throw the child into water, according to police reports.
The place she got the cruel mind to throw her baby to water is a Buddhist shrine that earns massive amounts of money from the passerby motorists. It is a time the politicians are spending millions of rupees that can fed hundreds of thousands of children like this, for election propaganda campaigns.
The child was rescued by several youth and he is now in Lady Ridgeway Children's Hospital in critical condition.
The remaining boy child and the three girl children of the ill-fated were handed over to separate children’s homes with a condition of allowing them to unite once a week.
Meanwhile, the child that was saved by people whilst he was floating in the river was still in critical condition in Colombo Lady Ridgeway Children’s Hospital and doctors did not predict positively regarding his life. The child had not been given proper first aid since the rescuers were not trained in them, said the hospital sources.
The rescuing incident was video recorded by a volunteer and it was aired by a private TV channel.
