In the early hours of Tuesday an unidentified gang abducted two traffic policemen on duty in Kurunegala, assaulted them and shot one of them dead; the other managed to escape. If the police personnel are not safe on public roads, how vulnerable the ordinary people are goes without saying.   The motive for Tuesday’s abduction and killing has not yet been established. But, the incident ought to jolt the police into action. A policeman and his wife died violent deaths at the hands of a criminal gang dealing in drugs some months ago in Kamburupitiya. Of late, there has been a spate of high-profile armed robberies besides various other crimes. Some suspects have been taken into custody, but much more remains to be done. No […]

By Madura Ranwala Two unarmed traffic constables attached to Kurunegala police station were abducted, while they were on duty, by unidentified armed men, who arrived in a white van in the early hours of yesterday at Barawedapola junction in the Kurunegala town and one of them was shot dead about two kilometres away near a jungle. The deceased had received two gun shot injuries to his back. He was lying fully naked on the ground. The abductors had stripped them naked. The other constable had survived by hanging on to the T-56 assault rifle that shot dead his fellow constable and pulling out its magazine. After killing the one constable, the abductors targeted the escaped constable who was at the time in the vehicle fully […]

Monks from nationalist Bodu Bala Sena or Buddhist Force accused of insulting the Quran appear in a Colombo court. Four of Sri Lanka’s hardline Buddhist monks appeared in court on Monday accused of insulting the Quran, in the first such case following a spate of religious hate attacks. Police accused the monks, from the nationalist Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Force, of making disparaging remarks against the Islamic holy book after bursting into a meeting of religious leaders last month. At the meeting, the monks also intimidated a moderate colleague who was promoting religious tolerance on the Buddhist-majority Island, police said. “The four priests along with two laymen were summoned by court today and granted bail in the sum of 100,000 rupees ($770) each,” police […]

 The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka will hear six fundamental rights petitions filed by 160 petitioners challenging government’s occupation of their lands on August 7. The petitioners allege that Sri Lanka Army has unlawfully occupied 6,381 acres of land belonging to the residents of Valikamam North Division in the Jaffna peninsula. The petitioners in their application had claimed they were in occupation of their lands for the past 23 years and had to vacate their places of residence due to the conflict between the LTTE and the government. They have further noted that they were not informed in writing that their lands were to be acquired by the Army for the construction of Battalion Headquarters and that they had come to know only through posters […]