Underworld body guards for MP: Government launches probe


Prime Minister RanilWickremesinghe has said that the Government would launch an investigation into the allegations that five underworld leaders whom the Police are looking to arrest have become the private bodyguards of a Minister.
Wickremesinghe made this claim while responding to United People’s Freedom Alliance Parliamentarian Padma Udayashantha Gunasekara who brought a media report on the said allegations to the attention of the House.
During the Oral Question Round, Gunasekara demanded to know from the Government, its standpoint over the recent media reports that a Minister was keeping five underworld members as his bodyguards.
The Premier said in response that he had already instructed the Police to conduct an investigation into the allegations. Apart from that he had also directed the Police to contact the media institutions which reported the news and find out more about it.
“Actually these MPs do not have a right to make such demands from us. It is paradoxical to see the MPs of a Party who could not punish their own Pradeshiya Sabha Chairman who raped and killed innocent women during its term, demanding today to take actions against underworld members.
When a Local Government politician of MP Gunasekara’s Party back then was alleged to have raped a foreign woman, you were in the Government but did nothing. You protected thieves and criminals. You also maintained underworld members as well. Now you are questioning our acts. What right do you have to talk against the underworld today?” Wickeremesinghe questioned.
Deputy Minister of Law and Order Nalin Bandara Jayamaha said that the Government would reveal to the country, the lists of underworld members who came to the weddings of powerful politicians of the former Government.