From 10 feet away, it looked like a grin, the row of teeth stretching from ear to ear. Freshly dug out from many layers of soil, the mud-covered skeleton lay on its spine, awaiting a number.

That would be 283, says W.R.A.S. Rajapaksa. He is standing on an elevation inside the site, located at a busy junction in Mannar, an island town in Sri Lankas Tamil-majority Northern Province. In his blue smock, the Consultant Judicial Medical Officer at Mannar District General Hospital looks like a surgeon, except that this operation is taking place under the sun, inside a messy soil pit. So he is also wearing a cap and rubber boots.

On a Monday morning earlier this month, at least four skeletons were clearly visible at the site, while parts of another were protruding from the soil. Where they lay — some piled one on top of the other and a couple to the side — it was at least two metres below ground level, says Rajapaksa, the chief investigator of the latest mass grave to be found in Sri Lanka.

As of Friday (January 18), 300 skeletons, including those of 23 children below the age of 12, have been identified. Members of his team that comprised fellow judicial medical officers, forensic archaeologists and analysts had resumed excavating the skeletons after a break for Christmas and the New Year. Wetting their brushes in a cup of water, they gently pried aside the soil deposits over the bones, making them visible, little by little, to the world they had left behind.

Scene of crime

We consider this a scene of crime until proven otherwise, says Rajapaksa on what happens to be the 125th day of the excavation, being undertaken following a directive from the Mannar magistrate court. The bodies had been found dumped, instead of being laid to rest beside each other, as would be the case in a cemetery.

In March 2018, construction workers stumbled upon human remains while preparing to build a new outlet for the state-run cooperative Sathosa (in place of its old building that had been demolished). Little did they know that they would be uncovering one of Sri Lankas largest mass graves almost a decade after the civil war ended in 2009.

Says Rajapaksa, Of the 283 skeletons identified here so far, we have excavated 277 and stored them at the court premises.

Samples will be sent to a laboratory in the U.S., in Miami, Florida, possibly next week, for carbon dating analysis. The process, which is often used in archaeology and forensic study, would ascertain the amount of Carbon-14 in bone and teeth samples. This could help establish the approximate period in which the person lived, before it possibly leads investigators to the likely year of their death or to those behind it.

At 9.45 in the morning, the shops in the area are open and teeming with customers. With the post office, market and the bus terminus all in the same vicinity, a number of vehicles criss-cross the grand bazaar area, or periyakadai sandi as the locals call it. Motorists on their way to work slow down and turn their heads 90 degrees to catch a glimpse of the grave site that has drawn media attention to their otherwise neglected town.