Sri Lankan police have arrested one of the country's highest-ranking Buddhist monks for allegedly sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl.

Pallegama Hemarathana Thero, the 71-year-old custodian of eight sacred sites in Sri Lanka, was arrested on Saturday at a private hospital in the capital Colombo.

He was remanded to prison on charges of repeated rape and sexual assault of a minor in 2022 in a temple in Anuradhapura. He is the chief priest of Anuradhapura – a Unesco world heritage site located around 200km north of Colombo.

The mother of the survivor, now aged 15, has also been arrested for allegedly abetting the abuse, according to Daily News Sri Lanka.

“We will be guided by the magistrate on further action,” a police statement said. Anuradhapura chief magistrate Siyapath Sasidu Wickramaratne said the monk would be transferred to the Colombo prison hospital.

Pallegama Hemarathana has yet to comment publicly on the allegations, and will make his first court appearance on Tuesday.

The magistrate also handed the monk a travel ban after child protection authorities alleged there had been delays in securing his arrest.

The allegations came to light after a complaint was lodged with the local police on 6 March about the alleged abduction and detention of a minor. Police arrested a suspect and placed the girl in a care centre, where interviews later uncovered allegations of prolonged sexual abuse.

There have been several historic cases of children being abused by clergy in Sri Lanka, but Hemarathana is the highest-ranking monk to face such allegations.

The monk is the chief custodian of a sacred tree believed to have grown from a sapling of the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment more than 2,500 years ago.