Kotte mayor Janaka Ranawaka arrested

Kotte mayor Janaka Ranawaka arrested ...

for pushing down opposition leader and assaulting him

Mayor of Kotte, Mr. Janaka Ranawaka was apprehended by the police this afternoon.

The reason for this was that he had pushed down the

opposition leader, Mr. Sugath Appuhamy who had been shouting against him after getting on top of a wall of the Kotte Municipal Council yesterday at which moment he had come there and had pushed him down and caused this accident. During that process there had been an incident of fisticuffs between the two and the mayor had admitted himself to Kalubowila Hospital while the opposition leader had admitted himself to the Colombo National Hospital and both of them had lodged entries at the police station against each other saying that one party had assaulted the other.

On investigation into the incident, according to the complaint made by Mr. Sugath Appuhamy to Welikada Police that Mayor Mr. Janaka Ranawaka had assaulted him the mayor was taken into custody today. The opposition leader Appuhamy who had engaged in a protest against the mayor had appeared at a media briefing a week ago pointing out that the mayor had taken a decision to demolish the municipal building which now is in a perfect state and had wanted to take a wasteful decision to put up the building at a different location and that since the majority power of Kotte is in the mayor's hands he had obtained the approval of the municipal in this connection. He had pointed out that this act was a case of pocketing millions of money in an underhand way and Mr. Appuhamy had thus got on top of the wall and launched the protest highlighting this offence. He had made his protest during duty hours of the municipality. The mayor who had arrived there on that occasion when everybody was watching had shouted out asking him to get down from the wall and as he had not done so, when the mayor had tried to pull him down by pulling him from his leg he had fallen down and faced injury. Mr. Sugath Appuhamy had told police that on the said occasion the mayor had assaulted him.

Two photos taken when he was in hospital, from BELOW