UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday called on the Government to appoint a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to probe the attack on their party supporters who were participating in a demonstration on Friday, calling for the release of former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka.
Mr. Wickremesinghe told a meeting in Welimada that his party members including Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya, General Secretary Tissa Attanayake and other MPs were attacked and their vehicles damaged in the incident at Punchi Borella.
“We can identify the Government as one which supports suppression. Nobody can prevent the people from protesting”, he said.
He said that during Friday’s protest, initially, the police was used to prevent the demonstrators advancing, and thereafter, goons, with the support of the police, attacked those protestors.
Mr. Wickremesinghe further said that, while ministers and Government politicians were being acquitted of charges, Mr. Fonseka continues to remain in jail.
Meanwhile, Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police- Western Province, K.P.P. Pathirana said that the protest march had deviated from the path they had intimated to the police and security was deployed.
Police seek media help to find culprits
An expensive TV camera of the Sirasa station remained missing, while a Thinakural photographer Sivasundaram Grishanth was still in hospital after Friday’s mob attack on the UNP demonstration seeking the release of former army chief Sarath Fonseka.
Deputy Inspector General of Police Anura Senanayaka told the Sunday Times that they were seeking information, video clippings and photographs from media institutions, to arrest those responsible for snatching the camera, assaulting the photographer and the demonstrators.
However, eyewitnesses said that police on duty watched on as the mobs assaulted the journalists and the demonstrators.
At least five vehicles of UNP MPs have been damaged, while 10 persons were injured. |
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