Two persons have been arrested in connection with the disappearance of a stock of textbooks worth about 800,000 rupees that were issued for distribution to students in the Eastern Province.
The Department of Educational Publications had handed over the stock of textbooks to a transport agent in the Biyagama area for transportation. A lorry driver had accepted the stock of books for transportation on behalf of the company in May last year.
However, an investigation conducted by the Thalangama Police revealed that the driver and another person had sold the stock of books to a bottle seller and had received a sum of Rs. 470,000 from the sale.
An officer of the Department of Educational Publications had recently lodged a complaint with the Thalangama Police regarding the sale of the stock of books, which included 19,892 textbooks issued for distribution to students in the Eastern Province. Upon receiving information that the stock of books had not been handed over as scheduled, an officer of the Thalangama Police had recently lodged a complaint with the Thalangama Police in this regard.
The police, who initiated investigations into the matter, arrested the driver of the lorry in question and during the investigations conducted, it was revealed that he had sold the stock of books to a newspaper bottler for a paperweight.
Accordingly, it has been revealed that the stock of books had been sold to a waste newspaper and paper mill in the Peliyagoda area and investigations are underway to arrest several other suspects involved in the incident, the Thalangama Police stated.