More than a year after Dilshi Amshika, a 15-year-old Tamil student at Colombo's Ramanathan Hindu Ladies' College, died by suicide following alleged sexual abuse by a teacher, the investigation into her death remains incomplete, prompting renewed criticism of the delays in Sri Lanka's justice system.
Amshika died at her home in Kotahena on 29 April 2025. Her family said her death followed prolonged trauma linked to alleged sexual abuse by her mathematics teacher, and to her subsequent humiliation, and her case drew island-wide protests demanding justice, with campaigners accusing her school of shielding the alleged perpetrator rather than protecting her. The accused teacher was arrested and later released on bail.
Speaking to local media on Tuesday, the general secretary of the Ceylon Teachers' Union, Joseph Stalin, said the slow progress of the investigation was deeply distressing. Although the case had been before the courts for more than a year, he said, the post-mortem process had still not been concluded; while the Judicial Medical Officer's report had been submitted to court, a final determination was now expected only on 7 August. The final CCTV analysis report had likewise not been completed, he added, and as a result the next stage of proceedings had been postponed until September.
Such delays in cases involving schoolchildren were unacceptable, Stalin said, criticising the slow pace of police investigations. Citing figures released by the Minister of Women and Child Affairs, he noted that 1,413 women and children had been subjected to various forms of abuse in recent months, including 498 cases of sexual abuse, and argued that protracted investigations and delays within the police and judicial system helped such crimes to persist.
A special committee of ministers, appointed in early May under the prime minister's instructions to examine the matter, had shown little visible progress, Stalin said. He called on the authorities to complete their investigations without further delay, and urged the minister of education, who is the prime minister herself, Harini Amarasuriya, along with the minister of public security and other officials, to intervene to ensure swift legal action and to prevent further such tragedies.
Amshika's death laid bare a chain of failures, across her school, the education ministry, the child-protection authorities and the justice system, that campaigners say allowed a vulnerable child to fall through every safeguard meant to protect her.
More than a year on, with the cause of death still formally undetermined and no one held to account, her family and those who have taken up her cause are left to fear that justice, in her case as in so many others, will not come.