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Minister attacks police, blames director for Students’ riot
View(s):Higher Education Minister Lakshman Kiriella said yesterday that what he saw as a “highly uncalled for” police attack on students on Thursday could have been easily avoided if an official conveyed the ministry’s decision the previous day to heed all their demands.
The official – Dr. W. Hilary de Silva, Director General of the Sri Lanka Institute of Advanced Technological Education – “neither told the students about our decision nor inform me that they were protesting,” the minister told the Sunday Times.
The result was students congregating outside the University Grants Commission offices at Ward Place. They were unaware of the decision and therefore unruly incidents occurred, he said. Minister Kiriella said he had brought this to the notice of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and action would follow.
The Sunday Times tried several times to contact Dr. de Silva on the telephone or email to obtain his comments, but he did not respond. According to Mr. Kiriella, he had chaired a meeting attended by the Director General, district heads and other officials in the wake of the student demands. “There was no issue. In fact, a cabinet memorandum was being prepared to raise to degree status the course students follow now. For this purpose, the three year course was being extended to four, he said.
The Higher Education Minister pointed out there was no issue since a previous mininster (Sarath Amunugama) had prepared the 54/90 circular for this purpose. However, Dr. Amunugama’s successor, S.B. Dissanayake, had halted it. At Thursday’s conference, the draft cabinet memorandum was discussed. “We expected the Director General of the Institute to convey this to the students. If he had done so, the unfortunate incidents could have been avoided,” he added. The minister said there were no constraints to heeding the student demands since the allocation for his Ministry had been increased by 75 per cent.
Mr. Kiriella strongly criticised the police assault on the students. After the attack 39 students, including five females and two monks, were arrested. They were produced before the Colombo Magistrate’s Court and released on Rs. 100,000 bail each. The case is to be taken up on January 8 next year. Minister Kiriella said an inquiry into how the Police conducted themselves was under way.
Senior Police officials in Colombo held a news conference to claim that they did not use excessive force.