Comprehensive investigations have been launched into the mysterious death of the Dutch monk of the Dodanduwa Polgasduwa Forest Monastery whose body was found floating in the Rathgama lagoon on Tuesday (08), Rathgama Police said.
Rathgama police found the body of the monk’s legs had been tied together with ropes and police suspect the death to be a murder.
Three teams of police investigators of Galle Division Criminal Investigation Unit, Criminal Investigations Bureau of Rathgama police and Criminal Investigation Department (CID), have been deployed to carry out investigations into the crime police further said. Police investigative teams visited the monastery yesterday to initiate preliminary investigations.
The fifty nine year old monk who was a Dutch had been ordained as Ven. Jinawansa on his arrival to Sri Lanka in 2011 from Netherlands. He had been meditating in a separate chamber of the hermitage and reported missing since three days back.
Subsequently the chief monk had seen the missing and the monk’s canoe floating on the lagoon. Thereafter the chief priest of the monastery had complained to police over the disappearance of the monk. In his complaint the chief priest had stated that the missing monk had left the monastery on “Pindapatha” on a canoe which had been reserved for him and did not return.
The foreign monk had been staying in the country on Visa renewed yearly. The post-mortem into the death was to be held yesterday evening at Karapitiya Teaching Hospital.