EPDP members arrested in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 November 1997, 23:59 GMT]
Sri Lankan Police arrested three members of the EPDP and seized a Toyota Land cruiser belonging to the group in Colombo this afternoon in connection with assault and robbery.

Police sources said that action was taken on a complaint lodged at the Mirihana station by the EPDP rebel MP Mr. R. Rameswaran (Mathan) that his secretary who was going to a bank in Nugegoda (a Colombo suburb) to deposit two hundred thousand rupees had been waylaid by the EPDP and severely assaulted.

Rameswaran has also alleged that the EPDP had snatched the money from his secretary.

The leader of the EPDP Douglas Devananda, sacked Rameswaran and his brother Ramamurthy from the group in June this year.

Both brothers were members of Parliament for Jaffna. Douglas then wrote to the speaker of the Parliament informing him that both cannot continue as MPs as they had been sacked from the group.

The brother went to courts to challenge this and got a verdict in their favour.

Recently a grenade went off inside the EPDP's well fortified headquarters in Colombo, killing one of Devananda's trusted lieutenants.

The EPDP blamed the brothers for the attack.