A 10-year-old schoolboy drowned in the Keselgamu Oya on Sunday afternoon after going with his grandfather to cut grass beside the river at Linpodwatte, in the Bogawantalawa police division, police say.
The boy, Pennis Thiban, was a grade five pupil at a school on the estate where he lived, the Daily Mirror reported.
What police say happened
The child went down to the river with his grandfather in the afternoon. While the grandfather was cutting grass, the boy was no longer where he had been. A search followed — Hiru News reports that neighbours joined in — and the boy’s body was found in the river.
The body was taken to Bogawantalawa Regional Hospital. The hospital’s District Medical Officer, A. S. K. Jayasuriya, said it would be sent to Dikoya Base Hospital for a post-mortem examination. Hiru reports it is being referred to the specialist judicial medical officer there.
Bogawantalawa Police are investigating.
Not reported
Neither filing gives the time of the drowning or of the recovery, says how deep or fast the water was, or reports whether the river was running high after recent rain. Neither says how long the boy was out of his grandfather’s sight. The two accounts agree on every fact they both carry.
Note that Hiru’s headline uses a Sinhala euphemism — literally that the grandson “went and hid” in the Keselgamu Oya. Its own text states plainly that the boy fell in and died, which is what the Daily Mirror reports.