Rape and Murder of Ida Carmalita, Pallimunai

Ida Carmalita, a young Catholic Tamil woman who was forcibly conscripted to the LTTE, managed to escape them and surrender to the police, three years later. A month after her surrender, five armed men broke into her mother’s home on the night of July 12th 1999, tied up the occupants and gang raped Ida leaving bite marks on her breasts and buttocks.

They then shot her through her vagina and left. Ida Carmalita’s horrific death attracted widespread attention and though there was conclusive proof that the perpetrators were members of the SLA, no one could be prosecuted as two key witnesses were threatened and had to flee for their life while the lawyer prosecuting her case, politician Kumar Ponnambalam, was murdered in January 2000.