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Indian magazine's release: Police complaint against Lankan PM

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Press Trust of India Colombo
A Sinhala majority national group has lodged a police complaint against new Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe over his order to release the stock of the 30th anniversary issue of an Indian magazine that was seized for alleged breach of national security.

Madille Pannaloka, General Secretary of the Sinhala majority nationalist group, said the complaint against Wickremesinghe has been lodged to police's terrorist investigation unit.

Wickremesinghe this week ordered the customs to release the stock of 'Frontline' magazine's anniversary edition dated February 6.

The edition carried a 1987 interview of slain LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran.

"His order to release the magazine was a threat to national security," said Pannaloka.
 

The civil war in Sri Lanka came to an end in 2009 when the LTTE was finally crushed by the armed forces and the groups's leader Prabhakaran was killed.

The UN says 30,000 people were killed towards the end of the nearly three decades-long civil war in the country.

The LTTE remains proscribed in Sri Lanka and many other countries, including India, the US and the UK.

Pannaloka said: "He (Wickremesinghe) has also lifted the ban on foreigners travelling to the north and also released 1,000 acres of high security lands in the north."

"We want police to investigate".

With Wickremesinghe becoming Prime Minister in the new government of President Maithripala Sirisena, the government announced the release of private lands in the north acquired for military purposes.

The release of lands has been a long felt need of the Tamil minority.

The previous government of Mahinda Rajapaksa had imposed a ban on foreigners travelling to the north without prior approval.

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First Published: Feb 20 2015 | 9:20 PM IST

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