The death of Chaminda Lakshan in police firing marks a turning point in the protests against the Rajapaksa government’s handling of the economic crisis.
The death of Chaminda Lakshan in police firing marks a turning point in the protests against the Rajapaksa government’s handling of the economic crisis.
Strings of white flags fly around this small, mostly Buddhist town, with posters mourning the loss of a local man, visible every few yards. In a span of five days, a pixelated image of Chaminda Lakshman in a bright pink shirt has gone viral on social media.
Mr. Lakshman, who was shot by the police Became the first fatal victim of police violence in the current on Tuesday wave of protests from citizens In the wake of its crushing economic downturn across Sri Lanka.
Chaminda Lakshman’s house | photo credit: Meera Srinivasan
several thousand people agitating on the streets Every day, against the government’s “failed” response Island’s unprecedented crisis, Struggling to find food, fuel and medicines amid severe shortages and rapid price increases, they demand that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse resign.
It has been a bleak week for RS Priyangani, wife of Shri Lakshman. The last time she saw her husband alive was when he went out to find petrol for his motorcycle. Only his lifeless body returned. “He was not going to protest or anything like that,” she says, preparing for her husband’s funeral on Saturday.
Their modest home is on a narrow street in a village near Rambukana in Kegalle district, on the way from the capital Colombo to the central highlands. Rajapaksa’s ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP or People’s Front) won around 67% of the votes in the district in the 2020 general election. The railway station of this town is closest to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage at the tourist spot.
Piyumi Upakshika Lakshni, daughter of deceased KD Chaminda Lakshan, 41, cries as she walks to a petrol station in Rambukana to fill up her motorcycle, amid the country’s ongoing economic crisis, on April 19, 2022. Rambukana, Sri Lanka on April 20, 2022. , photo credit: Reuters
The walls of Lakshmana’s house are painted bright blue, and the roof is made of tin sheets. In the living room, barely 10×5 feet, there is the mutilated body of Sri Lakshman for the respect of the visitors.
Although Mr Lakshman was a young activist in the opposition United National Party, family life kept him busy. He began selling fruit to support his wife and two teenage children. After waiting in line for hours on Tuesday and somehow finding petrol for his fruit truck, he decided to try his luck with his two-wheeler.
That was the day when other residents like him, waiting for hours near the city’s petrol shed, saw a fuel tanker and demanded that the fuel be distributed. But with no attempt to unload the fuel, possibly due to the imminent price hike, the crowd blocked the nearby railway track and agitated. Police reached the spot and after hours of standoff, opened fire in an attempt to disperse the protesters, resulting in the death of Mr. Laxman.
turn
Sensing the tension ahead of the funeral on Saturday, the authorities have deployed police and army in the area.
“I have no hatred for the police or the army. But they are all weapons of the state that killed my husband. It’s been five days since he was shot, and no one has been arrested. I want justice to be done,” says Ms. Priyangani. “It was Chaminda who dreamed big for our children and looked after them. I don’t know how I will manage alone now.”
RS Priyangani, wife of Mr. Laxman. photo credit: Meera Srinivasan
Officials have promised an “independent investigation” into the incident – in which 13 others were seriously injured – which has made the Rajapaksa administration more unpopular. On Colombo’s beach, where thousands of people gather to protest every day, Mr Laxman has been photographed alongside journalists and activists killed or forcibly disappeared during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s two-term presidency.
Shri Laxman is now a martyr for the local people. MG Ink says, “I didn’t do juice business yesterday. He said, ‘He has given his life for the country. The least we can do is go and show our respect.”
Some also see it as a moment of reckoning for the country’s majority ethnic community.
According to senior journalist KW Janranjana, who was at the funeral, the “Sinhalese nationalist mindset” prevented him from seeing how Tamils in the north and east had to suffer for decades. “Now that we have been hit hard and the people are suffering, they are calling Rajapaksa’s dynastic politics, corruption and repression,” he says.
Calling it a “critical moment” for the country, where the youth are taking a “strong position”, Mr Janranjana says: “Slogans raised in the protest movement are impressive and call for changes such as the abolition of the working president’s post. This is an opportunity to envision a new Sri Lanka.”