A Sri Lankan government minister, Chamara Sampath Dassanayake, forcibly entered a police station in Badulla and engaged in a verbal altercation with officers, ultimately forcing them to release 34 government supporters who had been detained over violating election laws.
This group, which included 27 men and 7 women, had been taken into custody near a major bus stand whilst campaigning for current Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
The detainees were reportedly wearing t-shirts with the president’s campaign slogan when they were apprehended. The minister’s intervention reportedly involved a heated confrontation, during which he verbally abused the officers and demanded that the detainees be freed. A video of this incident, showing the minister’s aggressive behavior, has been widely circulated.
The officials had explained that the group’s large size and their campaign attire violated election regulations, which allow only small groups to canvass and prohibit certain types of clothing. The individuals were initially detained following a complaint about their activities but were released after this incident.
This is not the first time that the Sri Lankan minister has taken the law into his own hands. Dassanayake is notorious for once forcing a school principal at a Tamil girl's school to kneel before him. At the time he was the Uva chief minister and he had forced the principal of Badulla Tamil Girls' School to kneel before him and apologize for allegedly disregarding an order he had issued. Sri Lanka's Human Rights Commission undertook a 10-hour investigation to investigate this incident.
The probe followed widespread outrage at the incident with parents of students at the school and teachers' trade unions calling for the Uva chief minister, Chamara Sampath Dassanayake to be arrested. He was granted bail after surrendering himself and faced no further action.
