Aragalaya violence: Minister alleges section of clergy protecting those who destroyed private properties

Chief Government Whip and Urban Development and Housing Minister Prasanna Ranatunga has accused a section of the clergy of protecting those responsible for the premeditated destruction of property belonging to SLPP politicians and supporters during the May 09/10, 2022, violence across the country.

The Minister alleged that police investigations into the incidents were slow. Claiming that JVP activists had been involved in the violence, Minister Ranatunga said that he requested IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon to bring the investigations to a successful conclusion, regardless of interventions made by the clergy.

The Gampaha District SLPP leader said so at a meeting held at the Gampaha Divisional Secretariat yesterday (27) to expedite the process meant to pay compensation.

A press statement issued by the Ministry quoted lawmaker Ranatunga as having urged the people to seek the intervention of the Human Rights Commission if they believed the police and the military failed to protect their properties.

Minister Ranatunga has requested the Office of Reparations and the Government Valuation Department to expedite the process.

Declaring that the Gampaha administrative district was the worst affected due to systematic attacks carried out by organised mobs, Minister Ranatunga said that of the 42 houses destroyed and partially damaged in the district during this period, owners of 33 houses had been fully compensated.

According to the Minister, altogether 162 properties, including vehicles, had been destroyed/damaged in the Gampaha district. Of them, 138 were vehicles, three wheelers and motorcycles and the rest were houses.

Lawmaker Ranatunga said that their ancestral home, though destroyed in the wake of 1977 general election, full compensation couldn’t be obtained till 2004. The Minister assured that he would try to finish the compensation payment as soon as possible (SF)