Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa claimed “professional agitators” were involved in the recent scuffle with the Police in Colombo.
Rajapaksa said that just as normal life resumed after bringing the spread of the coronavirus under control, a small group of agitators in defiance of a court order, tried to hold a demonstration in front of the American embassy over an incident that had taken place in the USA.
Rajapaksa said that following this single incident all those who had been engaged in propagating falsehoods during the 2015 presidential election campaign came out in force to condemn what they referred to as state repression.
“An actress who got caught red handed directing a video where she pretends to have been injured and hospitalised after an allged assault in 2014, and another long haired individual who said that it would have been better if he had been thrown into a drain soon after brith to save him the pain of living in a country ruled by the Rajapaksas, were once again seen in public after a lapse of five years,” Rajapaksa said.
He said the agitators in front of the American embassy who were recently hauled off to courts by the police were themselves frequent recipients of the former Government’s tear gas, water cannon and baton charge hospitality on Lotus Road.
“Those who never said a word about the way the yahapalana government responded to demonstrations are now making a hue and cry about this single, minor incident that took place under our watch,” Rajapaksa said.
He said that as a Government, they are not happy with the manner in which the demonstration was dealt with, and have said so publicly.
“Those involved in this incident were professional agitators who know how to provoke the police. Even after a police officer read out the court order banning the demonstration, the agitators claimed they were not shown any such order. The police also should not allow themselves to be provoked in that manner. These agitators need images of scuffles with the police on the streets. That’s what ensures their livelihood,” he added.
He also said that some argue the Government treated the Colombo agitators and those who attended the funeral of the late Arumugam Thondaman differently.
Rajapaksa said that when the Police imposed curfew in the Nuwara Eliya district to prevent large numbers of grief stricken people from attending the funeral of their leader, the people of that area cooperated.
He insisted that holding a demonstration in Colombo in defience of a court order, over an incident that had taken place in the USA which has no relevance to Sri Lanka, is an entirely different thing. (Colombo Gazette)