Sri Lanka: Poll Violence Claims Politicians

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Three people including a former minister were shot dead and an MP badly wounded in violence that occurred during the final phase of nationwide local elections on October 8.

A curfew was introduced, lasting until yesterday morning. Hundreds of police commandos and soldiers remained on the street after party supporters went on a rampage, damaging property and setting vehicles on fire.

The polling was completed despite a gun battle between political rivals who clashed in Mulleriyawa, a Colombo suburb, shortly before voting closed.

Three people including state presidential adviser and former minister Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra were shot dead and Arumadura Lawrence Romelo Duminda Silva, a government member of parliament was in intensive care after brain surgery. Dozens were wounded in the gun battle.

Christian volunteers joined in monitoring the elections.

Priests, nuns and lay Catholics visited the polling stations in 23 councils on behalf of the Movement for Free and Fair Election (MFFE).

The ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) won 21 of the 23 local bodies.

Apart from the Mulleriyawa incident, monitors said, there was no reported trouble.

UCA News

The Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News, UCAN) is the leading independent Catholic news source in Asia. A network of journalists and editors that spans East, South and Southeast Asia, UCA News has for four decades aimed to provide the most accurate and up-to-date news, feature, commentary and analysis, and multimedia content on social, political and religious developments that relate or are of interest to the Catholic Church in Asia.

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