COLOMBO, May 28, Reuter: Marxist assassins killed two socialist candidates for council elections in Sri Lanka’s central and ‘southern provinces, police said on Saturday.
They said People’s Liberation Front (JVP) gunmen shot dead an opposition United Socialist alliance candidate and two companions on Saturday in matale in ’‘central province.
Another alliance candidate was stabbed to death on Friday in Galle in Southern Province.
Souther, central and western provinces go to the polls in June to elect semiautonomous councils. Four of Sri Lanka’s nine provinces voted last month but no date has been set for elections in the northern or eastern provinces.
The JVP, drawn mostly from the majority Sinhalese, opposes an Indian Sri Lankan pact to end the rebellion of minority Tamils in Northern and Eastern provinces.
Indian soldiers sent to Sri Lanka to implement the pact killed three Tamil rebels and arrested another in Mankulam village in Northern Province on Friday.
Another guerrilla committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule when arrested on Friday at Chavakachcherie in Jaffna peninsula,
Article extracted from this publication >> June 3, 1988
