Money transactions among those who vandalised the Buddha statues in the Mawanella police division and any other person or parties affiliated to a political party is being investigated by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), the Sunday Observer reliably learns.
“The bank accounts of the suspects and any money transfer are being investigated by the CID,” an officer from the Mawanella police, speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Sunday Observer yesterday. The suspects had also vandalised Catholic and Hindu places of worship, he said.
Seven suspects had been taken in for questioning for destroying the Buddha statues in the Mawanella police division, while two more suspects are on the run. It was later found that they had already left the Mawanella police division, police sources said.
The CID has launched an investigation on the incident which took place at dawn on Wednesday, December 26, when a few youth on motorcycles had damaged some Buddha statues in and around Mawanella. The police beefed up security in the area with the Special Task Force (STF).
The seven suspects charged under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Act, No. 56 of 2007, had been remanded till January 2, 2019 after they were produced at the Magistrate’s Court, Mawanella.
One of the suspects, handed over to the police by residents had been admitted to the District Hospital, Kegalle. The All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU) deplored the incident and called upon the authorities to take legal action against the perpetrators.
All those involved in this incident should be dealt with according to the law said MP Mawanella Minister Kabir Hashim, in a FaceBook post.
Minister of Cultural Affairs, Sajith Premadasa will also conduct an investigation into the incident. Six officers of the Departments of Cultural Affairs and Archaeology had been deployed for the purpose.
The Secretary of the Hela Bodu Saviya Society, Ven. Budugala Jinawansa Thera in a letter to the President, asked the Government to bring the culprits before the law and to mete out the maximum punishment to them, to avoid such acts from developing into racial riots. Some social media sites speculated the involvement of two politicians behind the incident, citing a monetary agreement among the vandals and politicians.
It is alleged that two politicians had also been involved in inciting the Sinhala Muslim riots in Kandy, in March.