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Rise in major incidents of election violence: CMEV

06 Jan 2015 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) said yesterday there had been a rise in major incidents of election violence between November 20 and January 5 whereas the number of incidents of election violence seemed to have dropped when compared to the previous elections.

The CMEV Coordinating Secretary D.M. Dissanayake said it had documented 420 incidents of election violence with 237 categorised as major incidents while 183 as minor incidents.

He said the highest number of major incidents was reported from Jaffna District with 22 incidents followed by Badulla, Kurunegala and Kandy with 19, 18 and 17 incidents respectively.

Mr. Dissanayake said CMEV had recorded 26 incidents involving firearms and 03 incidents of petrol bombings.

He said CMEV had recorded 132 incidents of gross misuse of State resources for election purposes with excessive use of State media by the incumbent and very limited airtime for opposition candidates.

Mr. Dissanayake said a vast number of incidents of violence and flagrant violation of election laws were attributed to the ruling party where local politicians including local government members were involved.

A large number of incidents of attacks had targeted opposition party offices and persons connected to said offices, he said.

Mr. Dissanayake said the police had been biased for the ruling party and said they had been inactive in arresting the suspects with most suspects arrested for election violence related incidents had been released without following due process. (Ajith Siriwardana)

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Rise in major incidents of election violence: CMEV

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