JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The knife used to kill Anne Laksha Ignatius, the 31-year-old culinary and hospitality instructor stabbed inside her family home in Nallur on Monday, was a professional meat-cutting knife taken from the kitchen of the Jaffna hotel where her suspected killer worked, people familiar with the investigation said.
The suspect, Thevathas Pugalarasan, worked at NorthGate, the hotel on Station Road near the Jaffna railway station. The knife was used for cutting meat in the hotel's kitchen, the people said.
The finding leaves investigators with a central question: whether Mr. Pugalarasan took the knife before he went to Ms. Ignatius's home. If he did, it would indicate that he had prepared for the attack.
A photograph of the knife obtained by Jaffna Monitor shows a heavy, broad-bladed butcher's knife with a wooden handle fixed by three metal rivets. The word "BUTCHER" is etched on the blade. The rest of the inscription is not legible in the photograph, and the manufacturer could not be identified.
Jaffna Monitor has not established whether investigators have obtained the hotel's employment records or other documents linking Mr. Pugalarasan to NorthGate. Police have not publicly disclosed where the weapon came from.
Ms. Ignatius was attacked on Monday evening at her family's house on Temple Road, Nallur, after the assailant forced his way in, Jaffna Monitor reported earlier. Her mother was stabbed when she tried to intervene and was admitted to Jaffna Teaching Hospital in serious condition.
Mr. Pugalarasan, of Sivapuram, Paranthan, in Kilinochchi District, fled carrying a knife. He died later that night after he was struck by the Jaffna-to-Colombo night mail train near Ariyalai. He had previously been one of Ms. Ignatius's students, people familiar with the events said.
People who knew Ms. Ignatius said Mr. Pugalarasan pursued her persistently after she had repeatedly turned him down. A friend told Jaffna Monitor earlier that she had become concerned enough to leave Jaffna and stay in Trincomalee for several weeks. Shortly before her death, she was looking for another teaching post and had asked whether she could teach classes attended only by women.
Investigators will need to establish when the knife was removed from the hotel kitchen and how Mr. Pugalarasan came to have it. The answers would help reconstruct his movements before he reached the house on Temple Road.
