The Main Suspect Connected To the Death of Kalutara Schoolgirl, Was a Key Member of Aragalaya? Find out the facts…

දිනපතා සත්‍ය කරුණු දැන ගැනීමට අපගේ WhatsApp සමුහයටමෙතනින් එකතුවන්න.

The Aragalaya, the wave of massive protests which took center stage in April-June 2022 against the Rajapaksa lead government, caused substantial changes in Sri Lanka's political landscape. As a result, both Rajapaksa brothers, who were at the helm of the power, holding positions of President and PM, had to resign.

After this transformation, many key activists of Aragalaya have been targeted in social media, and many misinformation campaigns are directed towards them. Recently, the death of a 16-year-old girl in the Kalutara area, Sri Lanka, sent shockwaves around the country. Soon after, a wave of posts went viral, stating that the chief suspect surrounding the death of the schoolgirl was formerly one of the top activists of Aragalaya. However, Factcrescendo Team found these photo claims to be false and misleading.

Social Media Posts

A photo comparison, as seen below, claimed that the main suspect in the Kalutara girl's death was indeed a key activist and showed a photograph of a person in the Galle face protest ground as evidence.

Facebook | Archived Link

Also, this photo was widely shared on WhatsApp, indicating that the person shown in the first photo on the protest ground is the same individual currently held under police custody related to the death of the Kalutara schoolgirl.

From the responses to these photo posts, it’s evident that many had assumed that both photos portrayed the same person.

Also, another photo was shared claiming to be the person related to the incident.

Facebook | Archived Link

We took steps to investigate the accuracy of these claims.

Fact Check

To check who is shown in the Aragalaya background in the first photo above, we contacted several key individuals who actively contributed to the GGG protests. They clarified that the person was not noticed during GGG protests and, in fact, a photograph of artist Shalika Rukshan Senadheera, who was an active member of the Aragalaya, is being misused in spreading falsehoods, trying to discredit the protest members.

Accordingly, we checked the Facebook account of Shalika Senadheera. We noticed that he had added the image used in the viral photo comparison into one of his FB photo albums back on 27, 2022, as seen below.

Facebook | Archived Link

Furthermore, we contacted Shalika over the phone. He said such false narratives are being spread on social media to create false impressions about those who participated in the Aragalaya.

We also discovered that the person seen in the second photo post was Chamara Dilshan, who runs a YouTube channel called Chama. We contacted Chamara Dilshan over the phone to get further clarification. Chama mentioned that even though some of the posts used his photographs to create sarcastic content, many people had got misled, thinking he was the main suspect in the Kalutara incident.

Here is one of the FB posts that further clarified the false narratives linking Chama to the Kalutara incident’s main suspect.

Also, some mainstream media outlets revealed the real suspect's name as Dhanushka Gayan Sahabandu, which was confirmed to us by Police Media Spokesperson Nihal Talduwa as well. Accordingly, it is clear that the names of the individuals seen in photo comparisons also do not match that of the actual suspect.

We also inquired from Police Media Spokesperson whether there was any information linking the real suspect to the Aragalaya. He said that the police investigation into the incident is ongoing, and it is unclear whether the suspect was involved in the Aragalaya. He added that the suspect's politics are irrelevant to these investigations; hence the suspect’s political affiliations have not been investigated.

Also, we managed to contact a few individuals who actively contributed to the Aragalaya activities representing Kalutara. They all confirmed that the main suspect in the Kalutara girl’s death, Dhanushka Gayan Sahabandu, was unknown to them and certainly did not have any role in protest activities. Activists from the Kalutara area added that with the 1^st anniversary of some key Aragalaya events, old photos and videos have returned to the fore, and the suspects’ images were not visible in such footage either.

Reported information about the death of the Kalutara schoolgirl

On the 5^th of May, a young girl’s naked body was found near the railway line behind a hotel on Kalutara Galle Road. It was revealed that the deceased was a 16-year-old student who was a resident of the Nagoda area of ​​Kalutara and was studying in Grade 11. In relation to the ongoing investigations, a young man and a woman who came to the hotel with the girl were initially arrested. The person who stayed with the girl, who fled from the hotel, was later arrested on the morning of 9th May in Hikkaduwa, Galle. The investigations are ongoing into this incident, and the main suspect, who was presented to the courts today (10th May), has been detained for 48 hours for further questioning.

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Conclusion

Our investigation shows that the photographs shared alongside the picture of the main suspect do not depict earlier photos of the actual suspect, Dhanushka Gayan Sahabandu, who is currently under police detention.

One of the photographs shows a prominent member during GGG protests, artist Shalika Rukshan Senadheera, and the other image is of Chamara Dilshan, a YouTuber.