Sri Lanka crisis: A bus burns down near Mahinda Rajapaksa’s official residence in Colombo.
Colombo:
Five people were killed and more than 225 injured in a wave of violence in Sri Lanka, where the prime minister resigned after weeks of protests over the worsening economic crisis.
As clashes broke out late Monday, authorities imposed an indefinite curfew in the country of 22 million people and called on the military to help stop the violence.
Anti-government protesters, who have been peacefully demonstrating since April 9, retaliated after being attacked by supporters of outgoing Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Here are the main events:
MPs shoot protesters
Leaving the capital Colombo on Monday, ruling party MLA Amarakirthi Athukorla opened fire on protesters who stopped his vehicle, killing a 27-year-old man and injuring two others.
Police said the MP later took his own life, but the party said he had been murdered. The MLA’s bodyguard was also killed, but it was not clear how.
A provincial politician from Rajapaksa’s party, who has not been named, shot dead two people and wounded three in the southern city of Virketiya on Monday. He is missing.
Politicians’ houses burnt
Despite the curfew, at least 41 houses of top leaders of the ruling party were torched overnight. Hundreds of motorcycles parked in those houses were also burnt.
“This is something we should have done earlier,” an unidentified person told a local media network in front of a minister’s burning house. “We’re sorry we couldn’t burn it sooner.”
The house and temple of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s personal magician Gyan Akka were destroyed in a arson attack in the north-central city of Anuradhapura.
Rajapaksa Museum destroyed
Police said a mob attacked a museum about Rajapaksa in the ruling family’s native village Meda Mulana in the deep south of the island and threw him to the ground.
Two wax statues of Rajapaksa’s parents were flattened and the mob vandalized the building as well as the ancestral Rajapaksa’s house nearby.
A political office of Rajapaksa in the north-western city of Kurunegala was also destroyed in the arson.
state symbol hit
A mob torched a truck used by security forces to block the main gate of the Prime Minister’s official Temple Tree residence in Colombo, a major symbol of state power in Sri Lanka.
Police fired tear gas and fired shots into the air to disperse the crowd, as thousands of protesters stormed the main gate. The outgoing prime minister was taken out by the army before Tuesday morning.
Some tear gas canisters hit the US Embassy compound across the street from Temple Trees, but there are no reports of any casualties.
A hotel owned by a close aide of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s children was also set on fire, as well as a Lamborghini car parked inside. Police said there were no casualties among the foreign guests.
hospital blocked
Doctors at the main Colombo National Hospital intervened to rescue government supporters injured in clashes with anti-Rajapaksa protesters.
“They may be killers, but for us they are the patients who should be treated first,” one doctor shouted at the crowd blocking the entrance to the emergency unit.
Hospital spokeswoman Pushpa Soysa told AFP on Tuesday that a total of 219 people were admitted to the Colombo National Hospital alone, five of them in intensive care.
Soldiers had to forcibly open gates and break locks to enter the hospital to bring in wounded government supporters.
lake dunking
Angry anti-government protesters pushed dozens of people into the shallow Beira Lake near the Temple Tree residence.
“I came because I got a job from Mahinda (Rajapaksa),” said one man, as he gave permission to exit the highly polluted lake.
The police rescued the man and over a dozen others late on Monday night and admitted them to the hospital.
Six vehicles, including two buses used to transport Rajapaksa’s loyalists, were also submerged.
Buses were burnt, damaged
Dozens of buses used by Rajapaksa supporters to travel to Colombo earlier in the day were torched or damaged across the country.
In the suburb of Maharagama, a mob pulled a leader of a pro-government group out of a bus and threw him into a garbage cart before hitting the vehicle with a bulldozer.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)