SRI Lanka deployed heavily-armed troops around the country’s main free-trade zone on Friday as tension mounted ahead of the weekend funeral of a factory worker shot dead by police, officials said.
Soldiers were placed in the Katunayake zone, just next to the country’s only international airport where a range of international companies from India, Japan, China and South Korea are based, an official said.
‘The army has been deployed to maintain order. They have also been deployed at police stations to prevent mobs attacking them,’ said an officer, who declined to be named.
A 22-year-old factory worker died in hospital on Wednesday after being critically wounded in a police shooting two days earlier during demonstrations against the government’s proposed pensions reform.
The top police officer for Katunayake quit on Wednesday, taking responsibility for the use of live ammunition in the police firing that also wounded over 150 workers.
A media report said that German-owned factories were among those damaged during a rampage that saw machinery destroyed.
AFP