Two policemen killed in Lanka;suspicion on LTTE's former deputy leader Karuna

Two policemen were shot dead while manning a road block in eastern Sri Lanka after which a leader of the main Tamil party alleged that banned LTTE's former leader Karuna could be involved in the incident.

The incident happened on Thursday night when four policemen manning a roadblock at Vavunathivu in Batticaloa district were shot at, killing two of them, the police said.

Ranjith Madduma Bandara, the minister in charge of the police in the ousted government, said that one of the policemen killed was a Tamil from the north and the other was a Sinhalese from the south of the island.

 

The police chief has ordered an investigation into the policemen's murder.

MA Sumanthiran, spokesperson of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has raised doubts about the hand of the former LTTE deputy leader Karuna, who was a deputy minister during the previous regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa between 2010-2015.

"Since the events of October 26, Karuna Amman has come out of the cold and started speaking. According to our information, we have serious suspicions about those who have been rejuvenated since October 26," he said in Parliament.

Sri Lanka is witnessing a political crisis since October 26 when President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickeremesinghe and replaced him with Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Sirisena later dissolved Parliament, almost 20 months before its term was to end, and ordered snap election. The Supreme Court overturned Sirisena's decision to dissolve Parliament and halted the preparations for snap polls.

Both Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa claim to be the prime ministers. Wickremesinghe says his dismissal is invalid because he still holds a majority in the 225-member Parliament.

Sumanthiran went on to charge that Douglas Devananda a minister in the purported government of Rajapaksa had been behind some incidents of threats in the north since he was appointed prime minister.

Since 26 October, Karuna was seen to be active in social media. He was thought to be influencing Tamil legislators to back Rajapaksa in his unsuccessful bid to prove his majority in the floor of the House of parliament.

Both Devananda's Eelam Democratic Peoples Party (EPDP) and Karuna's armed groups were thought to be behind incidents of human rights abuses during the Rajapaksa tenure which ended in 2015.