A powerful image of Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, captured mid-speech with hands raised and eyes turned skyward, has ignited a digital firestorm after being mysteriously removed from official platforms. The photograph, taken during the government’s May Day rally in Colombo, quickly went viral—only to vanish from media channels shortly after.
Shot by Lahiru Harshana, a staff photographer for a Colombo-based newspaper, the image was visually arresting and symbolically loaded. Many interpreted it as a gesture of religious invocation or a call to a higher power—an image open to deeply personal readings. Harshana himself acknowledged the interpretive nature of the photo, writing on social media, “The interpretation of a photograph varies according to one’s own opinion,” quoting his thoughts in Sinhala as well.
But the real twist came next.
Shortly after posting the image, Harshana revealed he was instructed to delete it from his social media and remove it from all official outlets. No reason was publicly given, but speculation has run rampant online. Some suspect the image’s symbolic weight was too politically potent, while others claim it clashed with the government’s preferred narrative of the event.
Despite its removal, the image took on a life of its own—shared, reposted, and dissected by supporters, critics, and curious onlookers. For some, it was a masterpiece of timing and symbolism; for others, a photo too charged with ambiguity.
To date, neither the President’s office nor the newspaper has offered an explanation for the takedown.
