Condemning this morning's bomb blast in Anuradhapura, leader of the SLFP Mahajana Wing Mangala Samaraweera says the Rajapaksa government should take full responsibility for the attack.In a statement, he said whoever may have committed it, he strongly denounced the attack that killed 24, including opposition leader of the North Central Province retired Maj. Gen. Janaka Perera and UNP district manager Dr. A. Johnpulle, and injured 100 others.
The ex-military commander had been facing death threats since the moment he came forward to contest the recent provincial polls, but the government had completely disregarded his safety concerns, Mr. Samaraweera noted.
Since the beginning, the present regime had planned to make his life insecure and it had led to his murder, the SLFP (M) leader said.
During the election, popular UNP leader of the area Dr. A. Johnpulle had his home set on fire, over which he went to the Supreme Court to challenge police inaction.
In such a backdrop, the UNP appointed Maj. Gen. Perera as its defence spokesman and representative of the alternative defence information unit.
Mr. Samaraweera says the late politician had gathered information on serious irregularities in the military and about a handful of top defence officials who enjoy numerous privileges, about which the two had had extensive discussions a few days ago.
Maj. Gen. Perera had also planned to inquire into the problems of families of armed forces personnel.
The Rajapaksa brothers company and his henchmen in the military, who have made the war a political mirage, had found him a formidable challenge and people now had justifiable doubts as to whether they had acted to eliminate him from the political scene.
It is no secret that paramilitaries function under several government and military leaders, while Karuna Group also has a paramilitary unit with government patronage, Mr. Samaraweera said.
It is now known that these groups had been responsible for the spates of murders, abductions and extortions recently, and we believe their hands in several political killings, including those of Joseph Pararajasingham, Nadaraja Raviraj, T.Maheswaran as well as minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, he said.
It is a feature of the repressive Rajapaksa regime to maintain paramilitaries to strike at its opponents.
Suspicions of the public over the appointment of Karuna Amman as a MP on the very day Maj. Gen. Perera was murdered are not unfounded.
Under this state sponsored terrorism, even non-politicians are not spared - people who had had their human rights violated by police had been gunned down by unidentified gunmen and lawyers representing these victims threatened, with the latest being the grenade attack on senior lawyer J.C. Weliamuna.
In light of these developments, the government cannot just stop at condemning the bomb blast in Anuradhapura, Mr. Samaraweera said, adding that it should conduct all investigations into the incident impartially, under the supervision of international experts.
