A female undergraduate was hit in the abdomen with a tear gas canister fired at close range when the police yesterday (21) brutally attacked students from all State universities who marched to Parliament seeking solutions for their legitimate demands.
Police Special Task Force (STF) and Anti-Riot Squad personnel unleashed a vicious barrage of rubber bullets fired at close range whilst water cannons sprayed murky brown coloured water piercing the smoky fog of tear gas, resulting in three hospitalisations and 20 being injured.
Police anti-riot squad using batons,rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon prevented undergraduates from entering the Parliament Road at Polwatte Junction yesterday.
Traffic between Battaramulla and Rajagiriya was held up for about two hours.
The march started from the University of Visual and Performing Arts at 1.30 pm and was to end opposite Parliament.
Police closed the Parliament Road and set up barricades at the Parliament roundabout, but students tried to enter the road.
Thousands of students from universities across the country staged a mass protest along the road heading to the Parliament in Sri Jayewardenepura, Kotte where 20 students were injured of whom 3 are hospitalised
Convener of the Inter University Students Federation, the organising body of the protest, Najith Indika told The Island that the police had attacked them with tear gas and water cannon at the entrance to the Parliament Road.
He said that there were a number of academic and welfare problems in countrywide universities, including suppression of students at the Sabaragamuwa University.
“We also organised the protest march demanding an end to selling MBBS degrees at the Malabe Private Medical College,” Indika said, adding that more than 2,000 undergraduates from all over the country had participated in the protest march.
(Compiled from news reports in Colombo media)