Ranatunga family accused of assaulting students

Security guards of the Ranatunga family, the most powerful cricketing family in Sri Lanka, have been accused of assaulting a group of schoolboys from Asoka College in Colombo that has left four students seriously injured in hospital according to a report in The Sunday Times today.

The alleged incident occurred after one student climbed over a wall into the Ranatunga family garden to retrieve a cricket ball. The student was then confronted by a person with a knife, believed to be a domestic servant or a security officer, but managed to escape back over the wall.

One of the injured students, Chalin Manauranga, just 17 years of age, told the Sunday Times that two men, armed with a revolver and iron bar, then jumped over the school wall and started to assault the students.

"The man armed with a revolver threatened to shoot me," he said. "When the neighbours shouted and pleaded not to kill me, he hammered me on the head with the pistol. They the forced us by gunpoint back into the Ranatunga resisdence where we were assaulted again and forced to kneel in front of Arjuna, Prasanna and their mother."

The school Principal was appalled by the incident: "This is a brutal attack on the students. I have seen the students personally in hospital and this behaviour cannot be expected from such a well known family."

Maradana policed confirmed an incident had taken place at the Ranatunga residence, but refused to confirm whether Arjuna Ranatunga or Prasanna Ranatunga, a politician, had been directly involved. Nor would they confirm that firearms had been used.

Nandani Ranatunga, the mother of the five Ranatunga brothers, complained to the The Sunday Times that they were regularly harassed by pupils from the school and that no action had been taken despite several complaints to the authorities. She denied that her sons had been directly involved.

Throughout the day furious parents and pupils demonstrated outside the school.