The Governing Council of the Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka has permanently expelled 11 students over a ragging incident linked to the death of a second-year student in its Faculty of Technology, Hiru News reported.
The decision follows the release of the Council’s official inquiry report last week into serious disciplinary offences involving harassment and physical and psychological threats directed at the deceased student and others.
What the decision does
The registration of the 11 students is permanently cancelled. They no longer hold any of the rights or privileges of an internal student, and they are barred from entering or remaining on university grounds, faculty premises, hostel premises or any property controlled by the university without the prior written permission of the Vice-Chancellor.
NewsFirst reported that Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor S.A. Ariyadore said the Council acted on the recommendations of a committee appointed to investigate the incident, and that the investigation confirmed ragging was a cause of the student’s suicide. NewsFirst describes the body that took the decision as the University Council; Hiru calls it the Governing Council.
The death
Charith Dilshan, 23, a second-year student of the Faculty of Technology, took his own life at his home on 29 April 2025. His parents said he had been unable to withstand severe ragging and physical and mental harassment within the university.
Police and the Criminal Investigation Department conducted a special investigation. Fourteen students were arrested over involvement in the ragging and cases were filed against them.
Two details differ between the two filings and are worth stating plainly. NewsFirst gives the date of death as 29 April 2023; Hiru gives 29 April 2025. Contemporaneous Sri Lankan coverage of the death and of the police investigation is from May 2025, which places the date in 2025 and makes the NewsFirst year a slip. The two outlets also render the student’s name differently — Hiru as Dilishan, NewsFirst as Dilshan — with the 2025 reporting using Dilshan.
This is the second disciplinary stage, not the first
The university suspended 11 students within days of the death in May 2025. Wednesday’s decision is a separate and final step: the earlier action was a suspension pending inquiry, while this one permanently cancels registration following the completed inquiry report. The number of students is the same at both stages, so the figure alone does not distinguish the two decisions.
Not reported
Neither filing says whether the 11 students expelled are the same individuals who were suspended in 2025, or how they relate to the 14 students arrested by police. Neither gives the students’ names, their year of study, or whether any of them hold office in student bodies.
No filing states whether the expelled students have a right of appeal to the Council or to the University Grants Commission, whether any of them have indicated they will appeal, or what stage the criminal cases filed against the arrested students have reached. There is no comment from the students or anyone representing them, from the UGC, or from the Ministry of Education. No report says what became of the inquiry’s findings against anyone other than the 11.
