Mob justice?

Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) office in Yakkala came under attack yesterday morning; four persons suffered injuries.

- 

The FSP, an offshoot of the JVP, blamed a group of JVP politicians for the attack, demanding that he police arrest them forthwith. The FSP activists said the attackers were forcibly occupying their office, and named the JVP politicians who had allegedly led the attack. But the police ignored their call.

What one gathers from a video footage of yesterday’s incident is that the manner in which the police handled the situation smacked of their partiality towards the government members, as the FSP has claimed. IGP Priyantha Weerasooriya keeps saying there is no political interference in he police at present, and they can act independently and impartially. But instead of taking action against the alleged attackers, the police yesterday asked the protesting FSP members to leave, make complaints and take the issue to court. There is reason to believe that they would have acted differently if the FSP activists had been responsible for the attack.