Eight youths arrested in Jalthara gang rape case

Hanwella police have arrested eight youths in connection with the alleged gang rape of a 16-year-old schoolgirl in Jalthara area of ​​Hanwella.

According to police, the arrested suspects are between the ages of 19 and 21 and live in Nawagamuwa in the Embulgama region. They are accused of raping the girl and aiding and abetting the crime.

According to police, among the suspects is a teenager who was identified as the girl’s boyfriend.

Deputy Inspector General Renuka Jayasundara said a full investigation has been launched into the incident. The victim, a 16-year-old student from Kosgama, had gone to a dance event with her aunt on the morning of Poya day.

According to police, she told her aunt that she was going to a bookstore, asked a friend for 300 rupees and left to meet her boyfriend.

It was also revealed that she went to her boyfriend’s house and had sex with him and that the boyfriend then dropped the girl on his motorcycle in the Ambulgama area and called two of his friends and told them to talk to his girlfriend and take her to a place they liked.

According to the report, the two friends came on a motorcycle, spoke to the girl in question, took her to the under-construction Jalthara cemetery and had sex with her, and then three of her friends also came and raped her. Police said a young man who raped her took her to Hanwella Atigala junction and dropped her off there.

Police said the victim asked for money to take a bus home and the boy who dropped her off gave her 40 rupees. She was then found by a police officer crying on the side of the road because she did not have enough money for the bus.

After the girl made a statement about the incident, police took her to the scene of the incident on a tricycle. Police said the young man who gave her a ride was sitting near a nearby dance floor and the suspect was arrested after they identified him.

Later, when the suspect was questioned, he told police that the five people who raped the girl were his friends.

The suspects were subsequently arrested by the police and the student was admitted to the base hospital in Homagama for treatment after being referred to a doctor.

Meanwhile, another police team has launched an investigation on the instructions of Renuka Jayasundara, Deputy Inspector General of Police in-charge of the Children and Women’s Bureau. It has also been revealed that the girl in question had been raped in the past by another boyfriend and a group of his friends about two years ago. The police are also investigating the related incident.

The eight were produced before the Homagama Magistrate’s Court.

Nethmi Pujani Ratnayake and BK Kathriarachchi