Skip to main content

Sri Lankan Political Party Leader Killed In Rare Drive-By Shooting

A Sri Lankan political party leader was killed Monday along with four others, authorities said, in a rare drive-by shooting.

Police said the motive was unclear, but that Saman Perera, chairman of the Our Power of People Party, appeared to be the main target of the attack.

Perera's party has a seat in Sri Lanka's 225-member legislature, although he was not an MP himself.

He was gunned down in the southern town of Beliatta, nearly 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of the capital Colombo.

Police said his vehicle had stopped at a roadside restaurant when gunmen in a pickup truck opened fire and then sped off.

They said they were aware of a feud between Perera and a local criminal boss, a connection that local media have also reported.

The shooting came as police backed by soldiers carried out a nationwide anti-crime operation which has seen more than 44,000 people arrested in a mass crackdown.

Police said operation "Yuktiya," the Sinhala name for justice, had resulted in a sharp decline in crime.

The UN's human rights chief, Volker Turk, has criticised the police operation, saying it was responsible for a series of abuses including arbitrary arrests, torture, strip searches and searches without warrants.

Public Security Minister Tiran Alles told reporters in Colombo last week he was unconvinced by the allegations and said the crackdown was in the country's best interest.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/GAWJkpB

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's Official, Kamala Harris Is Democratic Candidate For US Election

US Vice President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party's presidential nomination Friday, confirming her remarkable rise to party standard bearer in November's showdown against Republican Donald Trump. Kamala Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month. "I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States," Kamala Harris, 59, said on a phone-in to a party celebration after securing enough votes by the second day of the marathon vote. In the two weeks since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Kamala Harris has gained full control of the party. No other Democrats stepped forward to challenge her elevation to the top of the ticket, making her confirmation as the first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party's nomination a formality. The a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Muhammad Now The Most Popular Name For A Baby In Great Britain, Data Shows

427 years after William Shakespeare wrote it for the first time in the great "tragedy" Romeo & Juliet, England is asking the quintessential question - "What's in a name?" - And this time wondering what significance that question might hold in another 42.7 years. The Department of Statistics in the United Kingdom has revealed in its latest dataset that Muhammad is officially the most popular name for a newborn boy in England and Wales. More than 4,600 babies were registered with that name in 2023 - the highest for a boy. Muhammad was the second-most popular name in 2022 as well. Noah, once the most popular name in UK, came a distant second this year, according to the Office for National Statistics or ONS. But the staff at Great Britain's statistical office has in-fact been observing the trend for a while now. Jotting down the most popular names in the UK, besides other important statistics, it revealed that Muhammad has been among the top 10 names for...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pak's ISI Fuelling Unrest In Bangladesh, Claims Sheikh Hasina's Son

Sheikh Hasina, who quit as prime minister and fled Bangladesh, will be back in the country as soon as democracy is restored, his son Sajeeb Wazed Joy said on Thursday and blamed Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, for fuelling the ongoing unrest in the country. In an interview with PTI, Mr Joy said that although 76-year-old Sheikh Hasina would return to Bangladesh, it has not yet been decided whether she will be back as a "retired or active" politician. He also asserted that the members of the Sheikh Mujib (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) family will neither abandon its people nor leave the beleaguered Awami League in the lurch. He expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government for protecting his mother and appealed to India to help build international opinion and exert pressure to restore democracy in Bangladesh. "Yes, it is true that I had said she wouldn't return to Bangladesh. But a lot has changed in the last two days following continuous...
Post a Comment
Read more