Lankan HC helps release student's body

The Sri Lankan High Commission in Malaysia is assisting the family of Sriskandarajah Saarankan who died in Malaysia to secure the release of his body, after the post-mortem examination yesterday.

Student Saarankan, died early Sunday, following an attack by gangsters at a restaurant in Malaysia a few days earlier.

Mission officials visited the hospital and spoke with the President of the Sri Lankan Students' Union at the University. They are also due to meet with the Director of the University to discuss the security concerns of the Sri Lankan students.

It is reported that while Saarankan, a student at the Nottingham University in Malaysia, around 40 k.m. from the capital, Kuala Lumpur and his colleagues were dining at a restaurant outside the university premises on November 26, around 5 p.m., a gang had stormed the restaurant with machetes and had started attacking the customers in the restaurant.

It is understood that their target was a group of middle aged Malaysian men of South Indian origin. The armed gang had mistaken the Sri Lankan students as acquaintances of their target, and launched the attack on them. While the other Sri Lankan students had managed to escape, Saarankan was caught by the gang, which had inflicted serious injuries on him and tried to slit his throat.

When the gang had left the scene, Madusha Alwis, a Sri Lankan student who managed to escape had returned to the scene and assisted in rushing his injured friend to the nearest hospital.

Saarankan had been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Subang Jaya Medical Hospital where he was operated on. The Sri Lanka High Commission in Kuala Lumpur has been in contact with an uncle of this student, who is resident in Malaysia, since the attack.

Saarankan succumbed to his injuries on Sunday.

The student's mother, who was on her way to Malaysia from Sri Lanka, was unable to see him alive at the hospital.