{"id":20941,"date":"2013-05-05T04:05:27","date_gmt":"2013-05-05T08:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=20941"},"modified":"2013-05-05T08:02:05","modified_gmt":"2013-05-05T12:02:05","slug":"january-twenty-fourth-is-the-day-that-happiness-diedfor-missing-cartoonist-prageeth-ekneligodas-wife-sandhya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=20941","title":{"rendered":"January Twenty-fourth is the “Day that Happiness Died” for Missing Cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda’s Wife Sandhya"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/p>\n

Hana Ibrahim<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Sandhya<\/a>

Sandhya Eknaligoda, wife of missing cartoonist and columnist Prageeth Eknaligoda, holds a placard with an image of her husband during a protest in front of the United Nations head office in Colombo, October 22, 2012. The protest was held to mark 1000 days since the disappearance of Eknaligoda who worked for Lanka-e-News, a privately owned independent network that was critical of the government ~ pic courtesy of: REUTERS\/Dinuka Liyanawatte<\/p><\/div>\n

Twenty-fourth January is remembered for many reasons. Historically, it was on this day that former Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill died (1965), that the American serial killer Ted Bundy was electrocuted (1989), that Robert Baden-Powell organized the first Boy Scout troop in England (1908)…. but for Sandhya, wife of missing cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda, this is the day \u2018happiness died\u2019, forcing her on a quest for answers that has proved to be as arduous as it has been heartbreaking.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

During a recent interview with The Independent, Sandhya said 24 January 2010 was the day, \u201chappiness drained from her life\u201d. It was the last time she saw her journalist\/political cartoonist husband, Prageeth, who went missing from his workplace around 8.30 that evening.<\/p>\n

There has been no news of Prageeth since then and he has been missing for more than 1,000 days. Sandhya believes he is alive and would return to her one day. \u201cMy absolute faith is that Prageeth is alive. He is my courage. He always worked for justice and equality. He was never a violent person. He never believed in violence, he never promoted violence. He always worked for peace and unity. Prageeth was not only my husband. He was my best friend. So it\u2019s my responsibility to make sure justice is done,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Government response to Prageeth\u2019s disappearance and Sandhya\u2019s pleas for a proper inquiry have been remarkably lackadaisical, leading both Sandhya and several Rights groups to believe it to be directly responsible for Prageeth\u2019s disappearance.<\/p>\n

Retracted the statement<\/strong><\/p>\n

At a meeting of United Nations Convention Against Torture in Geneva, the then Attorney General (now Chief Justice), Mohan Peiris, dismissed the charges against the government and said Prageeth had sought asylum abroad. For seven months Sandhya demanded proof for such a statement. None was forthcoming. Eventually when questioned in the court later, he retracted the statement, claiming he does not remember who the source of his information was and that \u201conly God knows\u201d the whereabouts of the missing journalist.<\/p>\n

Prageeth\u2019s disappearance came a few days ahead of the 2010 Presidential Election, which had the former Army Commander contesting against the incumbent President. Like many independent journalists, he placed his lot with the Opposition candidate, perhaps hoping things would improve. But it didn\u2019t. As the ensuing weeks and months proved, things only got worse.<\/p>\n

Prior to his disappearance, Prageeth had been working on several issues, most of which dealt with corruption, political malpractice and alleged government atrocities in the long war.<\/p>\n

According to Sandhya, when Prageeth left home that fateful morning, she had no inclination, it would be the last time she would be seeing him, or talking to him, or watching him walk down the narrow lane. Prageeth, who reportedly left his Rajagiriya office to meet with a friend, around 8.00 p.m., simply vanished. He was last seen getting into a three-wheeler.<\/p>\n

Prageeth disappeared<\/strong><\/p>\n

A colleague phoned Prageeth\u2019s mobile at 8.30 p.m., only to hear a strange noise on the line before it went dead. That was the last anybody heard of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the day Prageeth disappeared, there has not been any happiness in this house,\u201d says Sandhya, claiming she feels like she is walking into a mausoleum every time she enters the house she shared with Prageeth and their two sons. \u201cI haven\u2019t cooked milk rice in this house since then. There is nothing to be joyful about.\u201d<\/p>\n

She recalls his 12-hour abduction in August the previous year and says her husband had been worried and had noticed a vehicle without number plates frequently parked outside the house. He had also commented on regular clicking noises on his phone, leading him to believe it was tapped. Two weeks prior to his disappearance, he had said he believed he was on a government hit list.<\/p>\n

On that fateful day, when her husband failed to return home, Sandhya went to the police to report his disappearance. In a travesty that was to be repeated, and continues to a certain extent even today, she was sent from pillar to post, with neither the police station closest to her home, nor the station closest to his office, willing to accept her complaint.<\/p>\n

To date, all she has met with is repeated refusals to accept her husband\u2019s disappearance as a bona fide case and silence from the government. Sandhya says she tried through judicial channels, Sri Lanka\u2019s Human Rights Commission and even appealed, in a poignant letter to First Lady, Shiranthi Rajapaksa, seeking help as a mother and wife of a former dissident herself, all to no avail.<\/p>\n

Last year, she spoke in Geneva on the International Day of the Disappeared, and personally handed a letter to UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon.<\/p>\n

Sandhya, whose constant quest has been to keep Prageeth\u2019s story alive in the local and international media, says if she gives up, she would be handing victory to the perpetrators and denying justice not only for Prageeth, but for all the other husbands and sons who have involuntarily disappeared over the past few years.<\/p>\n

(Hana Ibrahim is the Editor of “Ceylon Today” for which this article was written)<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Hana Ibrahim Twenty-fourth January is remembered for many reasons. Historically, it was on this day that former Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill died (1965), that the American serial killer Ted Bundy was electrocuted (1989), that Robert Baden-Powell organized the first Boy Scout troop in England (1908)…. but for Sandhya, wife of missing cartoonist Prageeth …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘January Twenty-fourth is the “Day that Happiness Died” for Missing Cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda’s Wife Sandhya’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20941"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20959,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20941\/revisions\/20959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}