Woman arrested for cruelty to her own four-year-old child

• She had met the 28-year-old soldier through TikTok

By Prasad Rukmal   

A woman who inflicted cruelty on her four-year-old daughter, deserted her husband, and eloped with a soldier she met through the internet, was arrested by Lunugala Police while hiding in the Anuradhapura area.

She is a 26-year-old young mother from Udukiruwa in Lunugala who had been living in the area with her husband and daughter. Police said she had deserted her 32-year-old husband, who is a paddy cultivator,

She eloped with a 28-year-old soldier from the Medawachchiya area, whom she had met through the video-sharing social media platform TikTok.

Investigations revealed that she had told her lover that she was not married and that her parents had decided to register her marriage with an individual from the Badulla area soon, but he had not consented to it. She had requested the soldier to marry her.

She left home under the pretext of visiting her mother, who had been admitted to Kandy Hospital, and travelled to Lunugala, from where she eloped with her lover by motorcar.

Meanwhile, her husband inquired from his mother-in-law, finding out that she was well and not under treatment at Kandy General Hospital.

The police, who initiated investigations based on her mobile phone number to locate her whereabouts, found that she was now married to the soldier and living with him at his house in Medawachchiya.

A senior police official said the suspect woman had cheated the soldier by claiming she was not married and had deserted her daughter, which amounted to cruelty to the child.

OIC Lunugala Police CI Priyantha Kumara Chandrasekara, SI Edirisinghe, WPS 6558 Sandamali, and 7157 Chaturani are conducting further investigations on the instructions of ASP Dilip De Silva, SP Buddhika Gunasekara, and SSP Wasantha Kandewatta.