Weeraketiya tragedy -- two children aged 11 and 6 embrace death being run over by vehicle driven by 16 year old student!

Weeraketiya tragedy -- two children aged 11 and 6 embrace death being run over by vehicle driven by 16 year old student!

An eleven year old schoolgirl and a six year old schoolboy faced serious injuries from a road accident last Friday evening at Weeraketiya - Tangalla Road and had died after being admitted to hospital. The mother who accompanied the children too faced serious injuries. 

The Honda motor vehicle responsible for this accident had continuously been driven and later was found by Weeraketiya police parked at a house in Witharandeniya area. Incidentally, the said vehicle
was driven by a sixteen year old schoolboy studying in grade eleven in a popular school in Weeraketiya. It was reported that he even did not have a traffic license either. Two friends of his in his class had been inside the vehicle concerned at the time of the accident. The said accident has occured in Katuwewa area along Weeraketiya - Tangalla Road last Friday (1) afternoon. 

These two schoolchildren living in Witharandeniya Pol Thawana had come in a bus with their mother to attend a private tuition class and had after alighting from the bus had been crossing the road when the motor car travelling from the direction of Weeraketiya had knocked them down. People around had then had hastened to put the three of the victims into a van and dispatch them to Weeraketiya provincial hospital. However it was found that the two children had died. 

These two students had been studying at Tangalla Model Primary school and the schoolgirl Sanuri Vihansa was in grade five while schoolboy Sanuja Insara has been studying in grade one. Hospital sources say that the mother too is in a serious condition. In this manner allowing a minor to handle the wheel poses a question. The three suspect-schoolboys and the youth who handed over the vehicle have been taken into police custody. The owner of the vehicle happens to be a teaching supervisor and it is her 24 year old son who has handed over this underaged student. 

Walasmulla acting magistrate Mr. M.A. Weerasingha ordered that they be remanded till 15th November. It was Amaraweera Vidana Kankanamge Suneetha, a teaching instructor of Walasmulla Zone education office and her son Ishan Sulochana aged 24 who were so sent to remand custody. It was mentioned in court that the motor vehicle concerned had been given to minors without permission of this teaching instructor while the minor, a student himself who drove the vehicle and the two schoolboys inside the vehicle were directed to Kithulampitiya detention centre. 

Father of 11 year old Sanuri Vibhanga Rajapaksha and six year old Thanuja Nimsara Rajapaksha is Mr. Suranga Rajapaksha (45), a carpenter by profession and by the time he was alerted about this mishap, the mother S.G. Ranjani had been under treatment at the intensive care unit at Galle Karapitiya hospital with serious injuries. 

"It is like our own life that we care for our two children. Last Friday I escorted and dropped my two children and wife to the road and was getting ready to have my lunch when I received a call from Weeraketiya hospital and that my two children have met with a traffic accident and are under treatment at the hospital and to come as soon as possible. When I went there a big crowd had gathered there. I realised that my children had got involved in some trouble. I took my children and proceeded to Tangalla hospital. 

When I went my darling son had already left us. Then with unbearable pain in the heart we sent them to Matara. When I went to the hospital there ... my darling daughter too had left us. At that moment I heard that my wife had been sent to Karapitiya hospital. For what wrong have we done a thing like this happened!" he began to wail. Further inquiries regarding the incident are continuing.