Sri Lanka crisis: Shoot-at-sight orders issued as protest intensifies; youths block airport to prevent MPs from leaving country

Colombo: The Sri Lankan Defence Ministry issued shoot at sight orders on Tuesday night to security forces on those causing damage to public property and causing harm to the lives of people.

As a result of this order, there were shots fired at a junction of Angoda, a Colombo suburb, when a group of individuals tried to set fire to a police jeep, bystanders said.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan Inspector General of Police (IGP) on Tuesday night directed the DIG in charge of the country's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to start investigation into the incident, in which a group of supporters of former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa attacked protesters outside his earlier official residence Temple Trees, now dubbed as "Mainagomama" by the demonstrators.

Police said a group of people who had come to Temple Trees to pay their respects to the former Prime Minister on Monday, attacked peaceful protesters and smashed the property, and subsequently resorted to attacking the protesters at the GotaGoGama protest site in Colombo's Galle Face Green.

The IGP directed the CID to take required legal action against those involved in the incident.

Secretary in the Defence Ministry, Kamal Gunaratne said that 60 vehicles, including buses and jeeps, have been torched and over 40 vehicles have been damaged since Monday.

Amid the spread of violence, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has extended the curfew from Wednesday to Thursday.

Colombo main airport blocked by youth

A group of youth from the Katunayake Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in the Colombo suburbs has blocked the entrance to the country’s main airport, Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), blocking ruling party parliamentarians from leaving the country, the airport officials said.

They said the youth had blocked the entrance of the airport by parking vehicles across the access road, end inspecting all vehicles bound to the airport. They fear that the ruling Rajapaksa family members and their aides are fleeing the country, a bystander said. He said if these people are allowed to go the wealth, they amassed will not be returned do the country.

Former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned following incessant protests after which peaceful demonstrators calling for his resignation were ruthlessly attack by a group of his supporters inciting arson attacks on government and ruling party parliamentarians across the country.

The country's anomalous economic crisis follows a pandemic that hit key tourism earnings, leaving the government struggling with rising oil prices and the force of populist tax cuts.

It has pursued aid from multilateral lenders such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, along with Asian giants India and China. (Inputs from UNI)