{"id":7645,"date":"2022-05-18T08:27:32","date_gmt":"2022-05-18T08:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/?p=7645"},"modified":"2022-05-18T08:27:38","modified_gmt":"2022-05-18T08:27:38","slug":"at-least-nine-people-were-killed-and-more-than-225-wounded-in-the-violence-that-followed-a-mob-attack-on-anti-government-protesters-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/?p=7645","title":{"rendered":"At least nine people were killed and more than 225 wounded in the violence that followed a mob attack on anti-government protesters last\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Sri Lankan police arrested two ruling party lawmakers for allegedly instigating mob violence that plunged the country into days of unrest and left nine people dead last week, officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The members of parliament, both from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s party, were questioned by criminal investigators on Tuesday evening and detained overnight, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere is direct evidence against the two MPs and that is why they were arrested,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sanath Nishantha and Milan Jayathilake were among 22 politicians \u2014 including former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his son Namal \u2014 whose passports were impounded last week following allegations that they instigated violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On May 9, thousands of ruling party supporters who were bussed into the capital attacked a peaceful demonstration by anti-government protesters demanding President Rajapaksa resign over an economic crisis that has paralysed the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa \u2014 the president\u2019s elder brother \u2014 resigned shortly after the mob attack sparked retaliatory violence and arson, with more than 70 ruling party leaders\u2019 homes destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than 225 people were hospitalised from the violence, according to health officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Police say they have arrested about 500 people in connection with the violence and retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"510\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/SRI-LANKA-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7647\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/SRI-LANKA-1.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/SRI-LANKA-1-480x319.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) 768px, 100vw\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sri Lankan police arrested two ruling party lawmakers for allegedly instigating mob violence that plunged the country into days of unrest and left nine people dead last week, officials said Wednesday. The members of parliament, both from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s party, were questioned by criminal investigators on Tuesday evening and detained overnight, a police official [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/SRI-LANKA.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7648,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7645\/revisions\/7648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}