UNP Complains To IPU

By Indika Sri Aravinda

The main opposition United National Party (UNP) has lodged a complaint with the Inter-Parliament Union (IPU) in Geneva over the attack on a group of UNP MPs at Hambantota last week.

The chief opposition organiser and acting opposition leader John Amaratunge, commenting on the attack, said that UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe had raised the issue with the IPU and the United Nations. The complaints have been lodged for violating the parliamentary privileges of MP’s, Amaratunge said, adding that, on April 24, the UNP plans to ask the Speaker for a debate in Parliament regarding the incident.

Police Spokesman SSP Ajith Rohana said that the ministerial security personnel should also take responsibility over the incident.
At a time when two security officers should be assigned for each of the MP’s, there was only one officer and this has to be investigated, he said.

It was also revealed that the Lunugamvehera and Hambantota police were not informed by the security officers about the visit by the MPs and an investigation has commenced to determine why the security officers of the UNP MPs had failed to do this.