Preliminary police investigations have revealed that the death of the missing nine-year-old girl from Atalugama was a murder.
Her body was found about 150 meters from the house.
Her body was buried in a small canal that drains rainwater and sewage into a barren paddy field that has now been turned into a swamp.
The body of a girl who had been buried in the flood waters that had fallen in the area last evening had been found by the police.
The girl had gone missing while going to a shop about 250 meters from the house with chicken. A security camera in a shop recorded her carrying chicken.
Police investigations have revealed that her father was addicted to drugs and was not at home when the girl went missing. The girl had gone to the shop to fetch meat for cooking but had not returned home.
The girl disappears around noon on Friday. It is said that the mother had complained to the police that the girl had not been found in the whole village even though the whole village had been searched for the girl with the help of the Muslim devotees who come for prayers this afternoon.
According to the police, the canal where her body was found was not on the way home but on a by road that turned away from the road leading to the house. It is also suspected that the girl was traveling on the by road when a person who was staying on the by road called her and called her to the road. Doubts have been raised as to whether the person who had called her to the by-road had brought her in with the intention of committing a crime or whether it was aimed at stealing the meat parcel or money in her possession.
A senior police official said that looking at the gap between the place where her shoes were found and the place where the body was found, it was clear that her death had taken place not in the by road but in the canal.
The officer further stated that investigations are being carried out to find the perpetrators of this crime and the post mortem will be able to come to a clear conclusion as to the cause of death as well as the crimes committed against the girl.
