The general secretary of the United National Party (UNP), Sri Lanka’s biggest party in the ruling coalition, dismissed former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s claims that 59 army camps had been shut down in the North-East.
Minister Kabir Hashim, responding Mahinda Rajapaksa’s statement, said that Sri Lanka’s current president Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had not removed any of the army camps in the North-East.
Hashim said that the army camps had actually been removed during former president Rajapaksa’s rule. Adding that over 5,000 acres of land run by the security forces in the North-East had been released by the previous regime, Hashim stressed that the current government had only released 1,000 acres, reports ColomboPage.
The UNP minister was responding to a statement issued by the former president at a rally held in support of fielding Mahinda Rajapaksa as a prime ministerial candidate.
Rajapaksa warns of threat to Sri Lanka's national security and economy at election rally (13 Jun 2015)
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