Sri Lankan M.P. shot, two killed

Press, 10 February 1988, Page 11

Sri Lankan M.P. shot, two killed

NZPA-Reuter Colombo A ruling party member of Sri Lanka’s Parliament was wounded and two people killed in an attack on Monday night by gunmen suspected of belonging to an outlawed Marxist group, the police said yesterday. Mervyn Cooray was critically wounded when a group of men opened fire in his constituency of Panadura, 15km south of Colombo. His driver and a 14-year-old boy were killed, police said. The police said the unidentified gunmen, suspected of belonging to the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (J.V.P.: People’s Liberation Front), escaped on a motor-cycle. The J.V.P., consisting of youths of the majority Sinhalese community in the south, has been accused of a series of attacks on Government members and officials in protest against a contro-

versial peace pact with India. The accord, signed by President Junius Jayewardene and the Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, last July, is aimed at ending a five-year-old Tamil rebellion by setting up semi-autonomous provincial councils. The J.V.P. has been blamed for the killing last December of the ruling United National Party chairman, Harsha Abeywardene, and three others. It has also been accused of an assassination attempt on President Jayewardene and other Government members in Parliament last August, three weeks after the siging of the pact. Indian troops deployed in the north and east to enforce the pact are poised to launch a fresh offensive against separatist Tamil guerrillas in the eastern district of Batticaloa, residents said.