Colombo lodges, boarding houses to be closely monitored

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 March 2007, 21:44 GMT]
The law enforcement authority under the direction of Sri Lanka Defence Ministry has formulated a scheme to closely monitor the activities of lodges and boarding houses to strengthen the security in Colombo city. As a first step the Ministry is suspending the registration of new lodges, and is planning to order closure of lodges which fail to provide basic facilities, and to identify lodges which are suspected of having close links with undesirable persons.

The first phase is to be implemented shortly.

Under the second phase, lodges assisting terrorist activities would be acquired by the government, and persons running these lodges would be prosecuted in courts under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) for harbouring terrorists.

All lodges and boarding houses would be routinely monitored and checked by special police teams once a week, according to the new security plan.