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Conviction Buddhist institutions and contexts Buddhist institutions and lineages Galenbindunuwewa, North Central Province, Sri Lanka · 2026

Sri Lanka: temple chief incumbent sentenced to 24 years for abusing a boy in his care

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

chief incumbent of a Buddhist temple, custodian of a child resident at the temple

Organization

Sri Seevali Chaityaramaya Vihara

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The victim was a child resident at the temple — a common arrangement for boys placed in monasteries for religious upbringing — which placed him under the direct custodial and monastic authority of the incumbent who ran it.

  • Guru or spiritual-teacher authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2026-06-05 · conviction and sentence

    Anuradhapura Special High Court for Child Crimes, Sri Lanka. Polgampola Dharmaloka, 40, chief incumbent of the Sri Seevali Chaityaramaya Vihara at Sivalakulama, Galenbindunuwewa, was sentenced in early June 2026 — in absentia, having repeatedly absconded during trial, with an open arrest warrant — to 24 years' rigorous imprisonment (two counts of twelve years) plus Rs 500,000 compensation for sexually abusing a ten-year-old boy entrusted to the temple for education (offences 1–24 May 2015).

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • monastic and custodial authority over a child living at the temple

Cited record

Sources

reliable contemporaneous court reporting verdict and sentencing report 'Head Monk Sentenced to 24 Years Rigorous Imprisonment for Child Sexual Abuse', Sri Lanka Brief.

Reports the conviction and 24-year sentence of the temple's chief incumbent for abusing a child resident.

national newspaper court reporting verdict report '4 jailed for total of 101 years over child sexual abuse', Sri Lanka Mirror.

Independent coverage pinning the court and in-absentia verdict.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis
https://srilankabrief.org/head-monk-sentenced-to-24-years-rigorous-imprisonment-for-child-sexual-abuse/ Corpus classification: reliable-contemporaneous-court-reporting; evidentiary role: verdict-and-sentencing-report. SHA-256 1cddcfcb0e9d0f23aba3a6324ea1f786b14d3a6833f3bf7f6bec4744c386caff
Retrieval
2026-07-20 · Preserved
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis
https://srilankamirror.com/news/4-jailed-for-total-of-101-years-over-child-sexual-abuse/ Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: verdict-report. SHA-256 fc18e4e104fa4fa1145b76ff3b68854b36d4f028b14c1b291ec823a2579a82d2
Retrieval
2026-07-20 · Preserved
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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