Weapons captured by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) during its reign of terror in 1988-89 have created a turf war in Sri Lanka, Opposition Member of Parliament Dayasiri Jayasekera has alleged.
He made these bombshell claims during a talk show on a private television channel on Monday.
Jayasekera claimed that over 2,000 firearms, including automatic rifles, pistols, and homemade improvised guns that were once in the hands of JVP subversives, are currently in the possession of armed gangs roaming the streets of Colombo and the provinces.
“Statistics show that there have been 26 shootings so far this year, resulting in 22 fatalities between armed groups. These are weapons that were once seized by the JVP and have gone unaccounted for,” said Jayasekera.
His remarks follow a document presented in Parliament by another Opposition Member, Rohini Kaviratne, who stated that it was a dossier on JVP killings. She also claimed that the organization was the first to experiment with child soldiers, a tactic later adopted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the civil war.
The JVP currently forms a significant part of the government after shedding its Marxist image, which was first projected during an uprising in 1971 and later in 1988-89 in protest against Indian troops in Sri Lanka supporting the battle against the LTTE.
