Money extorted for Vesak using president’s name!

 

Monday, 19 May 2014 

Several Tamil businessmen of Colombo told Lanka News Web that they had been threatened and nearly Rs. 10 million collected from them, saying the president needed money to spend for Vesak festival.

Trustee of Mayurapathi Kovil at Wellawatte, Colombo 05, by the name Sundaralingam was behind the extortion of these businessmen.

He had fraudulently suceeded former Customs officer Vallipuram to the Kovil position.

Only Rs. 6.2 million out of the money, forcibly collected from the businessmen who are in dire straits due to a lack of business, had been handed over to the president before Vesak. The president had summoned his additional secretary Gamini Senarath and handed him over the parcel containing the money.

Sundaralingam is in the habit of swindling money from Tamil businessmen several times a year in order to be in the good books of the president. He and his son had been exporting phosphate to Russia, and he has been telling all and sundry visiting the Kovil that MP Namal Rajapaksa had cheated them out of that business and obtained the export order for himself.

Sundaralingam and his cronies organized a reception at a five star hotel in Colombo last year to mark Army commander Daya Ratnayake’s assumption to that office, and Tamil businessmen were ordered to buy a ticket for Rs. 2,500 and attend the function.

It is Little Asia Raja alias Kudu Raja and Ganesha Murthi alias Powder Murthi, both of whom had become millionaires overnight, who give ideas to Sundaralingam to deceive the president, the army commander and other VVIPS, Colombo Tamil businessmen say further.