Arrest warrant for MP issued

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 January 1999, 15:14 GMT]
The Puttalam district court issued an arrest warrant today on a ruling party Member of Parliament for not appearing before it in connection with three cases against him on several occasions. The People's Alliance (PA) MP for Puttlalam Mr.D.M Dissanayaka has been accused in many cases involving violence and arson.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan Police sources said today that the election related violence unleashed in the northwestern province continues to escalate unmanageably.

They said that they have received 277 complaints so far.

Of these, 17 are about shooting, 4 cases of arson and 13 of looting and robbery. The great majority of the complaints are against the ruling party said a Police officer in the Puttlalam district.

He said that 4330 polling cards were robbed from the Bangadeniya post office in the Kurunagala district while a gang grabbed 300 cards this morning from a postman.

Yesterday another postman was robbed of 388 cards which he had set out to deliver to voters in Mundal, a Tamil village formerly in the Puttlalam district.

It is common practice during elections in Sri Lanka to steal polling cards for the purpose of organising impersonation on the day of voting.

Political observers say that the PA is worried that it might lose the polls for the Northwestern province which comprises the Puttlalam and Kurunagala districts.

The PA's apprehension about its sliding fortunes is impelling it to indulge in excessive violence in the hope that it will result in poor voter turn out on polling day- a situation that will help it rig and engage in large scale impersonation.

PA politicians say that if they lose this election it might send the wrong signal to the Sinhala masses which in turn could have a domino effect on more important polls that are due.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's Commissioner of Elections called all the parties contesting the elections to the North-Western provincial council for a meeting this afternoon to discuss the escalating violence in the province.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, JVP, (People's Liberation Front) the left wing revolutionary party which is also contesting the polls told the Commissioner that the Police is not taking any complaints about violence and malpractice from them.

The commissioner Mr.Dayananda Dissananayaka said that he will have forty mobile Police units to supervise the distribution of polling cards to voters.