Members of the Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF) on Thursday occupied the controversial Malwana property allegedly linked to former minister Basil Rajapaksa, demanding the land be transferred to universities facing severe space and infrastructure constraints.
Student activists said the property had previously been described as having “no owner” before later being taken over by the State. Speaking from the site, IUSF representatives accused successive governments of failing to put properties allegedly acquired with public funds to productive use, and called on authorities to allocate the Malwana land to under-resourced universities.
They argued that the country’s higher education institutions continue to suffer from chronic land and building shortages while valuable State-controlled assets sit unused. The IUSF said it had launched a “direct struggle” over the issue and would continue occupying the property until authorities respond to its demands.
The student body also pressed the Government on its anti-corruption pledge, claiming meaningful action had not yet been taken to recover assets allegedly obtained through corruption and return them to the public. Police officers were seen at the location during the occupation, Newswire reported.
The Malwana property has been a long-running flashpoint in Sri Lankan accountability politics over questions of ownership and the route by which it entered State hands. The IUSF action lands during a period of intensified public scrutiny of the NPP government’s asset-recovery track, alongside parallel proceedings such as the Yoshitha Rajapaksa money laundering trial and the CIABOC affidavit case against Mahinda Rajapaksa.
