Daily NEWS Srilanka

15 Second Year students of the Agricultural Faculty of University of Peradeniya who have engaged in ragging of a torturous nature of some freshers of the same Faculty were taken into custody early last morning (20) by Peradeniya Police.

According to the Ragging Act since stringent measures have been enforced against ragging within the campus, in order to escape from such rules and regulations these students have rented out a house externally in Hindagala Megodakalugamuwa area and had carried on ragging activities in that
location. In this case it is 8 male 1st Year students who have become victims of ragging. The victims have been contacted over the telephone and have been asked to come to Galaha Junction and subsequently they had been escorted on motor cycles to the relevant spot and after arriving at the house concerned they were made to undress and had forced them to engage in various types of exercises and postures which provoked sexual stimulation, it is reported.

A villager had alerted Mr. Gamini Hitinayaka, Welfare Officer of Peradeniya University around 10.30 in the night and informed him over the telephone of these activities and he had hastened to that location in the company of Head of the Agricultural Faculty Mr. D.K.N.G. Pushpakumara together with officers of the Security Unit. On that occasion they were able to observe in secret how the freshers were subjected to acts of nudity and to video the incident as a source of evidence. Later after apprehending the accused students this incident was notified to Peradeniya Police and subsequently all 15 of them were taken into custody. 

It was revealed at the police inquiry that the accused had secured the said house at a rent of Rs. 10,000 for 3 months last January 2nd. The house concerned in fact belongs to a certain junior employee of Galaha Medical Office of Health and is still under construction. The accused students have on a number of previous occasions too have brought students there for purposes of ragging, it was revealed. These culprits have misled the owner by saying that they are Architects attached to an Architectural firm and he had said that he was unaware that misdeeds of this nature were taking place there. 

The students who became victims of this ragging activity are residents of Buttala, Kuliyapitiya, Opatha, Dodangoda, Nagalagamuwa, Pattiyawattha and Udugampola areas. Students who have been arrested are residents of Rabukkana, Lunuwila, Denipitiya, Mewanella, Homagama, Buttala, Galle, Galagedera, Kadawatha, Pothuhera and Amparai areas, police say. These 15 students who engaged in acts of torture and frightened the students after making them naked were produced before Kandy Addl. Magistrate Mrs. Rangani Gamage yesterday and were remanded till March 2nd. 

The offenders on the other hand were all 2nd Year students of the same Agricultural Faculty by the names of Chathura Lasantha, Darshana Goonewardena, Rajitha Basnayaka, Niroshan Rajapaksha, Kodituwakkulage Mihiranga, Segu Thaidu, Priya Kelum Jayatissa, Sasinda Wedapitiya, Sanjeewa Seneviratna, Pubudu Alwis, Dhananjaya Kanishka Bandara, Kavishka Lakshan Umesh Eranga Kumara, Harshana and Suresh Wijeysiri. The charges levelled against them came under clauses 2, 3 and 6 of the 1998 No. 20 Act of Ragging. The Magistrate conclusively informed that her judicial authority has no permission to grant bail to the accused concerned.