DAUGHTER-IN-LAW SET ON FIRE BY FATHER-IN-LAW

Husband's father pours thinner and kills daughter-in-law by setting herself on fire ...
strategy used to show it was a gas leak


A terrifying incident is reported from a house in Kurana in Katunayaka of a father-in-law who had set his daughter-in-law on fire by pouring thinner on her body and so killing her because of a dispute he had with her. Though he had planned a strategy to give the impression that the fire took place because of a gas leak, much information was revealed from the testimony given by the daughter-in-law who was hospitalised with burnt injuries.

The deceased was 27 year old Lakshika Sudarshini resident at Nanda Mawatha, Kurana, Katunayaka and a mother of 2 children. One child is 7 years old while the other is just 1 year and 2 months. The incident had taken place when she had woken up around 5.15 in the morning and had gone to the kitchen to prepare milk for her child. What the aunt of the deceased said was that her daughter-in-law was of the habit of going to the kitchen in the early hours of the morning and that she heard her daughter-in-law yelling on that Saturday morning and when she rushed there  what she saw was that her body was totally up in flames. The mother-in-law said that the fire was extinguished with the support of the relatives and neighbours and was admitted to Negombo Hospital; but as her condition was serious, she was then transferred to Colombo Hospital from Negombo Hospital .... however she had passed away around 12 in the afternoon that day.

Before she died, she had testified to the Hospital police that her father-in-law had poured thinner on her body and had set herself on fire.

On investigations conducted at the house after the incident, the police were able to find that the gas tube fitted to the gas cooker had been dislodged. It was later revealed that the gas tube was so dislodged to give the impression that the fire was a result of a gas leak and thus lead the investigations astray. The police were able to find the plastic can too in which thinner was allegedly brought which was burnt to a certain extent burnt in one spot.

Sources reported from that family say that the daughter-in-law who died from the incident and her father-in-law were not on good terms with each other. The husband of the deceased woman and her father had been in business together. It was said that they were wholesale dealers of sweets, grain and spices.

The Seeduwa police took into custody the father-in-law of the deceased mother of the 2 children on suspicion, Upali Grero (51). Further investigations are being conducted by the police.