10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Sunil Watagala, Attorney-at-Law

Jathika Jana balawegaya· Colombo· 28 February 2025 ·Debate: Appropriation Bill 2025 - Committee Stage Debate Continued (Afternoon)

Law & OrderSecurity & Defence
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Hon. Sunil Watagala stated that recent shootings and other crimes have involved serving or retired members of the armed forces and Police, including individuals with weapons training linked to narcotics. He said the Defence Secretary has moved to apprehend armed forces deserters and recall firearms issued by the previous Government, with reissuance subject to threat assessments. He also noted that dual citizenship processing is being expedited and indicated that authorities expect soon to disclose who is behind murders in the Middeniya area.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, in response to a point by the Opposition MP: it is no secret that in recent crimes, serving or retired members of the armed forces and Police have been involved. Therefore, the Defence Secretary has initiated two measures: to apprehend all deserters from the armed forces, and to recall all firearms issued by the previous Government, to be reissued only after threat assessments.

¶ 02 Police reports indicate that, upon reviewing recent shootings, many perpetrators are serving or former security personnel. Those with weapons training, coupled with involvement in narcotics, are being drawn into these crimes. Accordingly, actions are underway. On dual citizenship processing, steps are being taken to expedite. As for whether politicians are behind certain murders, in a few days we expect to reveal who is behind the murders in the Middeniya area.

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Friday, 28 February 2025 ·No. 1741927369029372 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
Page · column
not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
Permalink
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Cite as: The Hon. Sunil Watagala, Attorney-at-Law. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 28 February 2025. No. 1741927369029372. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/26339