A group of students from the Inter-University Students’ Council (IUSC) continued occupying the controversial Malwana property on Thursday into Friday, lighting campfires overnight as they refused to leave despite political criticism, Newswire reported.
The students entered the sprawling Malwana property earlier this week, arguing that unused state assets allegedly linked to former minister Basil Rajapaksa should be repurposed to address chronic university hostel shortages.
The occupation has drawn an unusually public split within the student movement. An IUSF faction aligned with the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) said the protest involved a group connected to the government and suggested discussions with authorities could have been pursued instead of an occupation. The intra-left disagreement marks one of the rare moments the IUSC and FSP-aligned IUSF have publicly diverged on the legitimacy of a student action.
Students at the site rejected the criticism. They said they had attended discussions at the Education Ministry but were not satisfied with the responses given on longstanding issues facing the university system. “We have decided to continue this action,” student representatives told Newswire, framing the move as a symbolic struggle over higher education funding rather than a single-property dispute.
Opposition politicians have also weighed in, with some describing the occupation as unlawful and warning that allowing state property to be occupied in this manner could set a problematic precedent.
The main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) on Friday accused the government of having a political hand in the takeover. Kalutara District MP Jagath Vithana told reporters that students had “unlawfully” entered the premises and begun cleaning the site while police personnel stood by without intervening, The Island reported. He questioned whether the inaction had official sanction and warned that unchecked occupations could “fuel public unrest” and escalate into wider security concerns. Vithana said state assets belonged to the public and had to be protected accordingly.
By Saturday afternoon, the occupation had entered its third consecutive day with no resolution in sight. The Inter-University Students’ Federation said discussions held at the Ministry of Education in Isurupaya, Battaramulla, had “not been successful,” NewsFirst reported, marking the first explicit confirmation that the ministry track had broken down. The group reiterated that the property — which it said had no identified registered owner — should be turned over to ease shortages of university accommodation, faculty complexes and student hostels, rather than left idle.
The Malwana property has been a long-running flashpoint in Sri Lanka’s asset-recovery debate, with the original IUSF entry on Wednesday framed around the question of how state-controlled estates should be used while universities face land and infrastructure shortages. The action coincides with intensified judicial scrutiny of Rajapaksa-era cases, including the Yoshitha Rajapaksa money laundering trial and the CIABOC affidavit case against Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Sources: Newswire, The Island, NewsFirst.
