Curfew was enforced in Sri Lanka after raged protestors burned down leaders’ homes in night of unrest
Former Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was evacuated from his official residence on Tuesday by the heavily armed troops after thousands of protesters transgressed the main gate amid the worst violence in weeks of protests over a record economic crisis in the island country.
The protestors, who had crossed the main gates of the PM’s official Temple Trees residence in Colombo, started attempting to storm the main two-storey building in which Prime Minister Rajapaksa was hiding out with his immediate family.
“After a pre-dawn operation, the former PM and his family were evacuated to safety by the army,” a high-ranking security official told the media. “At least 10 petrol bombs were thrown into the compound.”
He further added that the police kept up a barrage of tear gas and fired warning shots in the air to hold back protesters at all three entrances to the colonial-era building which is a key symbol of state power.
The ex-PM’s evacuation to an undisclosed location followed a day of violent protests in which at least five people were killed including a member of parliament and nearly 200 were wounded.
Additionally, dozens of properties linked to top Rajapaksa loyalists were torched and mobs attacked the controversial Rajapaksa museum in the family’s ancestral village in the island’s south, razing it to the ground, police said.
Curfew in the country:
A curfew is in force across Sri Lanka after mobs put on torch homes belonging to the ruling Rajapaksa family. The streets of Sri Lanka were calm on Tuesday after the authorities deployed thousands of troops and police in the country to enforce a nationwide curfew.
“The situation is calmer now, though there are still reports of sporadic unrest,” said police spokesman Nihal Thalduwa.
As per the authorities, the curfew will be lifted early on Wednesday, with government and private offices, as well as schools and shops, ordered to remain shut on Tuesday.
PM Rajapaksa’s forced resignation:
Earlier, on Monday, the then Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was forced to resign following weeks of violent protests over the worst economic crisis Sri Lanka is facing since its independence in 1948.
The resignation marked a sudden fall from grace for the patriarch of the all-powerful Rajapaksa clan that has dominated Sri Lankan politics for nearly 20 years.