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JVP terror cannot be left out in debate on Batalanda detention centre: SJB
The Island
|April 10, 2025
The SJB yesterday (09) said that what had happened at the Batalanda detention centre (Batalanda Housing Scheme of the State Fertiliser Corporation) couldn't be debated leaving out the JVP terrorism in the late '80s.
The top SJB spokesman Mujibur Rahuman said that the JVP, that made an abortive bid to assassinate the then President J.R. Jayewardene, inside Parliament, on 18 August, 1987, as they opposed the signing of the Indo-Lanka peace accord on 29 July, 1987, couldn't absolve itself of the responsibility for the atrocities it perpetrated at that time.
The Colombo district MP said that the SJB intended to use today's debate on the Batalanda detention centre to remind the country of the JVP's brutal conduct at that time.
Responding to another query, the former UNPer said that this debate couldn't have been held at a better day.
Declaring that the UNP had no option but to fight back in the face of JVP terror, the outspoken lawmaker said that the attack on President JRJ claimed the life of Deniyaya MP Keerthi Abeywickrema and wounded several others, including then National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali, who was later assassinated by an LTTE gunman.
This story is from the April 10, 2025 edition of The Island.
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