Take actions without fear, says Sirisena

Amid growing unease among Sri Lankan Muslims over recent attacks targeting the community, President Maithripala Sirisena on Tuesday asked the Law and Order Ministry to take action on the perpetrators without “fear or favour”.

His instructions came at Tuesday’s weekly Cabinet meeting, where Muslim Ministers voiced concern over violence against minorities, incited allegedly by Buddhist hard-liners. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the local police must be made accountable, according to a media statement from Cabinet Minister Mano Ganesan.

Since mid-April, nearly 20 incidents of attack on Muslim-owned establishments and places of worship were reported, according to the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, an umbrella organisation for Muslim civil society. “Clearly, there is incitement of violence and hate speech. But the police seem reluctant to arrest him [perpetrator] because he is in robes,” its vice-president Hilmy Ahmed said, referring to Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, who leads the hard-line Sinhala-Buddhist organisation, Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force). The monk has in the past been linked to anti-Muslim riots and faces several cases.

Earlier this week, he commenced a fast resisting a likely police arrest, following his reported hate speech. However, he called it off within hours. Late Monday, two shops owned by Muslim and Tamil residents in the southern Ratnapura district were attacked, reportedly by hard-line groups.

Emphasising that the police would take immediate action if there was a threat to law and order, spokesman DIG Priyantha Jayakody told The Hindu the country’s penal code gave “no exemption” to religious leaders. On the perceived inaction by the police, he said: “Police are not magicians, we have to investigate a complaint first. We can’t act on information, we can only act on available evidence. We are investigating the attacks very seriously.”