Democratic People’s Front (DPF) leader and parliamentarian Mano Ganesan has called on Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala to urgently convene a multi-stakeholder conference to address what he described as escalating violence against plantation residents in Ratnapura and Nuwara Eliya districts.
In a letter dated Friday (15), Ganesan said recent incidents had raised serious concern among plantation communities and political representatives. The issue was raised in Parliament last week by Ganesan, MP Jeevan Thondaman and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, and Ganesan said he had informed President Anura Kumara Dissanayake about the incidents during a telephone conversation on 10 May.
“Yesterday (14), yet another incident was reported within the Uda Pussellawa Police Division, where a resident was assaulted and subsequently hospitalised,” Ganesan said in the letter. “Under these circumstances, and in view of the growing urgency of the matter, I kindly request you to convene the promised conference without delay.”
The proposed meeting would bring together Plantation and Community Infrastructure Minister K.V. Samantha Vidyarathna, the Inspector General of Police, provincial Deputy Inspectors General representing six provinces, and the chief executives of all 22 Regional Plantation Companies. MPs of the Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) and the Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC), along with several civil society activists, want to participate “to amicably address and bring an end to these recurring incidents of violence,” Ganesan said.
The estate sector employs a predominantly Malaiyaha (hill-country) Tamil workforce concentrated in Nuwara Eliya, Badulla and Ratnapura districts. The Human Rights Commission earlier this month summoned plantation companies and estate worker representatives over delayed daily wage payments — one of several long-running grievances feeding plantation-community tensions.
Source: Newswire.
