Second custodial death at Sri Lankan police within a month

01/11/2020

A suspect found dead in Nawagamuwa police on 31st October 2020. According to the police version he has handed himself in a police cell. Bu the family members suspect a foul play.

“When asked, [from the police] we were told that he was taken under a warrant. Then he had been beaten very bad. Dilan was beaten so hard that he couldn’t talk. He showed me his scars in the back,” the victim’s mother has told media.

The suspect had been in the custody of the Nawagamuwa Police and was placed in a cell with four other suspects.

The victim, 25, was a resident in Attygala, Hanwella, who was arrested on the charges of robbing gold chains, according to Police

Police Spokesman, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Ajith Rohana has said that a 25-year-old suspect had been arrested over several robberies.

The suspect had been in the custody of the Nawagamuwa Police and was placed in a cell with four other suspects.

On October 11, another young man Gayan Pushpkumar, 21, was arrested by the officers of the Pugoda Police Station on mistaken identity. Initially, he was suspected of having robbed some money. However, later, the money had been found in the very house the money was supposed to be stolen from.

In between the suspicion and the actual discovery that the arrested suspect had nothing to do with the alleged crime, the suspect was hit and kicked on his belly by the Officer In Charge of the Pugoda Police Station, the family members have revealed. As a result of these kicks, he got seriously injured and thereafter he was declared dead. When the family tried to make a complaint to the police at the same police station, the statement was not recorded. Instead, the OIC of the police station attempted to come to some settlement on the matter, which the family has refused, reported Asian Human Rights Commission.