OUTRAGE IN CEYLON

Evening Star, Issue 22273, 26 February 1936, Page 8

OUTRAGE IN CEYLON

SUCCESSFUL ELECTION CANDIDATE WOUNDED FIVE PEOPLE KILLED IN STREET Prets Association—By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, February 25. (Received February 26, at 1 p.m.) The Colombo correspondent of ‘The Times ’ reports that five were killed and 13 wounded—three fatally—by shots fired at Bernard Aluwihare, who was elected by a majority of 10,000 for the Matale (Ceylon) State Council. Aluwihare was triumphantly touring in a decorated motor car when shots from a motor car _at a 20yds range wounded him in the head and back. The alleged gunman, Kandegedera, standing on the seat and leaning on the sliding-roof firing a single-barrelled gun, continued the fusillade. An aged hill chief, riding in Aluwihare’s car and protecting his sons from the shots, was twice wounded. Another occupant was killed. The gunman kept the crowd at bay until he was seized from behind. The mob overturned the car and attempted to lynch Kandegedera, whom the police rescued. Aluwihare, an Oxford barrister, participated in Gandhi’s Satyagraha campaign, and was a political prisoner in India before settling in practice in his native hill town, Matale, where, wearing the Indian national costume, he was known locally as Gandhi. He won a considerable following. He made a statement in hospital that the Opposition wanted a by-election and thought shooting was quicker than a petition. Kandegedera is a dismissed police sergeant. An election worker for the defeated candidate, according to a witness in the Police Court, handed Kandegedera a rupee after a conversation, after which Kandegedera departed in his car. The elections were remarkable for many affrays, a resident at Colombo being stabbed to death. It is generally felt that the enfranchisement of illiterates was a mistake.