Piliyandala mother's sad story

Bank son in two-storied house with daughter-in-law
Mother in a corner of kitchen compound
Neighbours giving food from over the wall

An incident was reported yesterday, Christmas Day where a daughter-in-law was taken into custody by Piliyandala police for having beaten up her mother-in-law , withholding her meals and for having pushed her in to the back of the house. The neighbourhood has been aware of this harassment meted out to this 83 year old aged woman who was a resident of Bokundara, Piliyandala named A.G. Leelawathi for
quite sometime and they had taken steps to inform the police on having heard her shouting,"Don't kill me .... don't beat me!" unlike on any other day. On the Christmas Day she was being beaten up!

Accordingly the police, made a raid on this house and were able to find that it consisted of a number of rooms and that the victim concerned however was not to be seen in any of those rooms. The mother-in-law was subsequently found lying on a bed inside a temporarily-structured shed of block-stones at the back of the house behind the kitchen .... in starvation.

This feeble woman was starving badly and was given some food by the police themselves. The son of this aged woman happened to be a retired bank officer and the couple had been living in this luxurious two-storied house in comfort with their two children.

As the daughter-in-law had not taken any liking towards her husband's mother, it was quite a long time ago that she had pushed the mother-in-law aside to a corner of the house premises.

The mother-in-law who was quite old was not even in a state of walking about. She had spent her time inside this shed suffering from the rain and son and had been deprived of proper food. It was also understood that on certain occasions when the victim had been shouting in starvation, some kind neighbour had managed to palm out some food over the parapet wall of the house. Some plastic bottles used to give water to the victim were found within the shed when police raided the house. The police who recovered these plastic bottles found that the bottles were covered with moss and were absolutely amazed, saying that not even an animal is treated in that manner.

On being questioned, this age-old feeble mother said that her daughter-in-law had even pelted her with a portion of a brick a few days before it.

The daughter-in-law who was arrested was a woman of 52 years. She is expected to be produced before Kesbewa Magistrate.

When the police arrived to conduct the raid, a large crowd from the neighbourhood thronged near this house and they all expressed their gratitude to the police.

Various stories could be heard nowadays of sons and daughters-in-law who maltreat the parents. This incident came to be known to the public because of the mediation of the police.