A National People’s Power member of the Polgahawela Pradeshiya Sabha has been remanded until 5 November over an alleged sexual assault on a 20-year-old woman who works at a biscuit factory he owns.
Polgahawela Magistrate Udumbara Dasanayake made the order on Thursday, Hiru News reported. The councillor was named in the Sinhala report as Wijesinghe Arachchilage Dinesh Samantha Kumara Wijesinghe.
He was arrested by Pothuhera Police and produced before the court the same day. Police told the magistrate the complaint concerns a sexual assault on a 20-year-old woman employed at a biscuit factory belonging to the councillor.
The alleged victim is not named in the report, and no details of when the incident is said to have occurred have been published.
What the charge actually is
Hiru’s own English-language URL for the story describes the allegation as “assaulting a woman”. Its Sinhala text is more specific: it uses ලිංගික අතවර — sexual assault — and, in a second reference, ලිංගික හිරිහැරය, sexual harassment. The English rendering drops the element that defines the offence, and this desk has followed the Sinhala.
The arresting station and the court sit in different towns: Pothuhera Police made the arrest, while the case is before the Polgahawela Magistrate’s Court. Both are in the Kurunegala District, and the Pradeshiya Sabha is the Polgahawela local authority.
Not reported
Hiru is the only newsroom this desk could find carrying the story. A scan of the Daily Mirror’s breaking-news listing down to ID 353165 on Thursday night returned no filing on it, and NewsFirst’s homepage carried none either; a domain-restricted search across Ada Derana, NewsFirst, the Daily Mirror, Colombo Gazette, the Island and Daily FT also returned nothing on this case. The aggregators Asian Mirror and TTV News both carried it, and TTV News independently gives the remand date as 5 November and the complainant’s age as 20 — but neither is a verified newsroom and neither counts toward this article’s credibility rating.
No filing states whether the councillor has been suspended by his party or by the Pradeshiya Sabha, whether he is represented by counsel, or whether bail was sought and refused.
