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| Sunday, 9 October 2005 |
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Police get right : Operation clean-up
by Jayantha Sri Nissanka The police had done a marvellous job of removing election propaganda material from public places on Friday night so much so that residents, especially in Colombo and its suburbs were amazed to see totally cleaned-up city walls, roundabouts etc early Saturday morning. Police have stationed decoys in all cities and mobile patrols will be deployed to arrest party supporters who paste posters, decorate party colours and cutouts of candidates in public places violating election law. Circulars have been sent to all Police Divisions to conduct the election strictly according to the law and arrest anyone who violates election laws, a Police Election Secretariat senior official said. "We will not tolerate intimidation. We will implement the law to the letter to ensure free and fair election. However, all the candidates have extended their fullest cooperation so far. We believe their supporters in the grassroots level too will follow suite without breaking election laws", DIG Gamini Nawaratne told the Sunday Observer. DIG Nawaratne said that he is grateful to all officers who were in police stations islandwide removing propaganda materials till the dawn on Saturday. "It was a very had work and now party supports should prevent from defacing walls again with their candidates posters", he noted. The main cities in the country were flooded with propaganda material of the two main candidates Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe before they handed over nominations on Friday. Police Election Secretariat had advised all DIGs in charge of provinces to recruit civilians who are non-aligned to any political party to help police officers to remove election propaganda material. Candidates are allowed to conduct propaganda according to the election law in their homes, at their offices and at meetings till November 14. According to the, 2004 electoral list 13,327,160 voters will cast their votes to elect the fifth President of Sri Lanka on November 17. The list includes 293,164 new voters. |
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