Pleading and crying for the justice on private news channel Hiru TV recently, the actual owener of the Dambulla-Sigiriya land that was alleged to be transferred to Kumar Sangakkara’s wife name, the poor couple claimed that they were fooled by the man, who was looking after the land belonging to former Sri Lanka captain, with false promises.
In last few days, several media reports in Sri Lanka have accused Sangakkara and his wife of fraudulently transferring a land that was handed over by the Government to a low income family. The issue with this said property is that it falls in the category which makes owners of such properties unable to transfer ownership.
The lady who laments about giving away her land is Ethul Pedige Padmini. Her husband Wimalasiri narrated that the extent of the land was ninety perches and it belongs to his wife.
“We are ailing and nobody cares for us. Mr. Sangakkara owns the land adjoining ours; which is near the lake. My wife constantly falls sick and a person by the name of Warnakulasuriya Mudiyanselage Ihalagedara Sanjeewa Asela, who is looking after the land belonging to Sangakkara, visits us and provides us with food and drinks. He helps us in providing transport to obtain medical facilities. These acts prompted us to vest this land in his name. We handed him all the documents connected with this land and in return he promised to look after us as long as we live. His promise to get us our medicine helped him win our hearts. We never thought that he would transfer the ownership of this land to someone else. The view of Sigiriya rock from our land and its sheer beauty are the only comforts we now cherish after having lost our land and suffering chronic diseases,” Wimalasiri was quoted as saying.
“Sanjeewa, who came to get the land written in his name promised to look after us until we die. A date has now been fixed for the operation at the Kandy Hospital, but we have no money to travel to the hospital. With the news of this land appearing in the newspapers he has said that he is not in a position to finalise this matter. We now face serious difficulties in having no land and we are in constant fear that our lives are in danger,” Padmini told Sri Lanka news paper Daily Mirror.
After the alleged scam busted, Sangakkara’s supporters and social media journalists immediately started circulating his statement, in which he said that the he is the one who made a complaint of this fraudulent act. His critics, meanwhile, claims that the land commissioner letter story is just a cover up attempt.
Sangakkara hold high profile posts in International cricket – President of MCC and cricket director of Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Rajasthan Royals. In Sri Lanka cricket, however, now he falls in the same category of those former players, who makes meaningless noises to change Sri Lanka cricket for eight months in a year and then flies to India for remaining four months to minting IPL money. Presently, Sangakkara is also a member of so called technical advisory committee of Sri Lanka Cricket. However, like Aravinda De Silva, he is also believed to accept this post just only to counter 2011 World Cup Match Fixing claims controversy!
