Minister Prasanna Ranatunga claims investigations revealed that a national list candidate of the JVP during the 2015 General Election, was involved in yesterday’s protest.
The Minister speaking to media today said the Mirihana protest turned into a riot through a certain groups involvement.
Minister Ranatunga said attempts are underway to portray the protest as a people’s protest and that political parties were not involved.
However, he refuted such statements and claimed that a JVP members name was brought up during investigations into the Easter Sunday attacks as well.
He charged that the JVP raised similar incidents in 1988-1989 which were apparent in yesterday’s incident.
The Minister asserted that the President remained patient and issued directives to authorities to allow peaceful protests and for the Police and the Army to refrain from intervening.
However, Minister Ranatunga said later in the night a group began destroying public and private property prompting the President to issue directives to use minimum force to disperse the crowd.
Commenting on the media release issued by the President’s Media Division pertaining to extremist involvement, the Minister said the term Arab Spring was raised by a group who joined the peaceful protest.
He claimed the government did not refer to extremists as a particular religious group, but individuals of a political party who turned the protest violent last evening.
