Unrest could arise if students are pressurized: Ruwan

25 November 2011 01:49 pm

Gampaha District UNP Parliamentarian and President of the National Youth Front Ruwan Wijeyawardena said if the students were pressurised, a situation that was seen in Egypt or in Syria would take place in Sri Lanka in the future.

“Democracy in the country is currently broken into pieces by the government,” he said, while addressing the media about the deepening crisis in the university system at a meeting organised by the University Youth Front, the University student’s wing of the UNP.

Secretary of the Front Buddhika Edirisinghe said police posts have being put in place in universities and they have also recruited security officers from Rakna Lanka and LRDC (Pvt) Ltd.

“We urge the authorities to remove them and give the right to students to follow their education freely. What the Minister should do is to improve the much needed basic facilities within the universities,” he said.

Instead of that, the Minister was spending a large sum of money to improve the security and to increase facilities for the two security firms which come under the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development,” he said.

“The Minister promised that Rs.30 billion would be spent to improve facilities and minimise the problems within the universities. The money would come from budget allocations and foreign funds,” the Secretary said.

“Rs.1,600 million given to the country by the Kuwait Fund has been given to Rakna Lanka,” Coordinating Secretary Kelum Karunathilake said. He also charged that the University of Sabaragamuwa was spending Rs.17 million for security while only Rs.4 million allocated for students living in the hostels.

“By creating incidents similar to the detection of explosives at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, the Ministry can implement such unethical moves. We have also learnt that an intelligence unit is gathering information about student activists in universities,” he claimed. (Supun Dias)