COLOMBO, Jan 28, Reuter: A Sri Lankan Opposition Politician became the ninth candidate for next month’s parliamentary poll to be killed when he was shot dead at his home, police said on Saturday.
Over 200 political activists have also been killed since the campaign for the February 15 poll began about three weeks ago.
An official said Punchibanda Ratnayake, a freedom party candidate in the central Badulla district, was gunned down on Friday
The killing, so far, of six freedom party candidates prompted the party to urge the elections commissioner to stop the violence.
Party Secretary Somasara Dassanayake said, in a letter sent on Friday to Commissioner Chandranande De Silva, that “what is taking place is not an election campaign but a massacre.”
Police blame the attacks on the leftwing people’s Liberation Front but political analysts believe some of the violence is the work of political rivals.
The front, drawn from radical Sinhalese in the south, is trying to overthrow the government and has said it would disrupt the poll.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 3, 1989
