Six more undergraduates of the Sabaragamuwa University have been detained and interrogated by the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) since yesterday – they are the third set of students to be arrested since the attack on a student of Tamil identity within the university premises on August 3.

SB – Minister Higher Education

Six first-year undergraduates of the Social Sciences and Languages faculty had been arrested yesterday at the Bandara hostel and have been detained and interrogated at the University guest house. These fresh arrests are made following a series of similar arrests made since the attack on a Tamil student named Sandheer Kumar Sudharshan – a resident of Muhamalai. He was found gagged and unconscious in the morning on August 3, with cut wounds all over his body. The victimized student initially told the Police that he remembers a group of five masked men attacking him.

Another third year student of Tamil ethnicity was arrested and interrogated by the TID on August 5, while he was sitting for an examination and the charge made against him was downloading downloaded images of wounded Sudharshan. Thereafter a group of students who held a press conference on August 6 to raise public awareness on the incidents in the university had been followed to their homes and attacked by the TID.

Soon afterwards, Sudharshan upon being released from hospital is arrested and detained by the TID on August 9 during which he backtracks on his original statement to the Police and confesses to inflicting the cut wounds on himself. It is 23 days since his detention and neither his parents nor his colleagues have been permitted to visit him.