3 inebriated students taken into custody from tuition class

By Ranjith Rajapaksa  

The Hatton Police had taken three students who were under the influence of alcohol while attending a private tuition class conducted in a temple in Hatton area into custody last Saturday (16).   

These students were released on bail by the police after obtaining a medical report from a doctor at the Dickoya Base hospital and were instructed to report back to the Hatton Police on February 23.  
Police said that these students were studying for the G.C.E.(O/L) examination to be held this year. They had purchased a bottle of arrack from a foreign liquor shop in the Hatton town and taken it into the tuition class being held at a temple and had consumed most of the contents of the bottle before the class began.   

Having noticed that the three students, who were between the ages of 15-16, were vomiting during the class, a Buddhist monk at the temple had informed the police who arrived on the scene and took the students into custody.  A partly drunk bottle of arrack was discovered inside the bag of one of the students arrested along with a plastic cup and some bites.   

OIC of the Hatton Police Crime Investigation Division, SI Pradeep said that the manager of the foreign liquor shop from which the students had purchased the liquor had been taken into custody for selling alcohol to minors.