A Sri Lankan lawyer, N Dharshana Weraduwage filed a fundamental rights petition on Monday looking to safeguard and foster the Buddha Sasana against any attacks or threats, in reaction to recent vandalism of a Buddhist statue in Mankulam, in the Northern Province. 

Weraduwage's petition sought an interim order to direct the Minister of Law and Order to investigate recent incidents of vandalism of Buddhist statues in the Northern Province and to take action to re-build, restore and/or refurbish those properties. 

Photograph: Hiru News

Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa arrived back on the island on Monday, following a series of protests against his presence in Malaysia last week.

Thousands of Sri Lankan soldiers are taking part in a military exercise in the Tamil North-East this week, with delegates from Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and the USA joining in.

The exercise, entitled “Cormorant Strike VII – 2016”, will take place in Kokilai in Mullaitivu, and will have over 3,000 troops participating.

A Muslim businessman who travelled to Trincomalee has been declared missing on Sunday evening, reports NewsFirst.

Police report that the man, identified as Mohammed Nazrin of Bandaragama, had travelled to the North-East for a gold auction. 

Last month an abducted Muslim businessman was found murdered in the South.
 

According to reports in the Sri Lankan press, the body of the former Sunday Leader editor, Lasantha Wickrematunge will be exhumed. 

Mr Wickrematunge, who was openly critical of the Rajapaksa regime, was assassinated in January 2009. 

His grave site has been guarded by police, reports Ceylon Today. 

Malaysia's envoy to Sri Lanka is to be summoned on Monday after Sri Lanka's High Commissioner was attacked by anti-Rajapaksa protesters in Malaysia this weekend. 

"The Malaysian envoy in Sri Lanka would be summoned to the Ministry this morning to register protest," the deputy foreign affairs minister, Harsha de Silva was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying. 

"The Sri Lankan government condemned this incident in the strongest possible terms," he said, adding "the Malaysian authorities were conducting investigations". 

Sri Lanka’s president Maithripala Sirisena vowed that his government would not “bow down” to international pressure, days after meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon.

Speaking at the 65th anniversary of the Sri Lankan Freedom Party, Mr Sirisena told a crowd in Kurunegala that the international community would not be allowed to interfere with the “domestic affairs” of the island.

Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to Malaysia was reportedly assaulted by a group of protestors, amidst continued demonstrations against former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s visit to the country. 

The High Commissioner, Ibrahim Sahib Ansar, was at Kuala Lumpur airport on Sunday to see off Sri Lankan MP Dinesh Gunawardena, who had accompanied Mr Rajapaksa to Malaysia. The protestors reportedly surrounded the Sri Lankan official and demanded to know the whereabouts of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who they accuse of committing genocide.

In his inaugural address to the Indian Conference 2016 in Singapore, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe called for the establishment of an Indian Ocean Order to govern the "interaction between states to ensure the safety and security of the Indian Ocean". Wickemasinghe focused on the emerging significance of the Indian Ocean's busy trade corridors and called for the establishment of an Indian Ocean Assembly.

The Sri Lankan army has been invited to join the UN peacekeeping force in Mali, the Sunday Times reported. 

Citing a senior foreign ministry source, the paper said the "Government of Mali has sought a Sri Lankan peacekeeping contingent as against troops from Pakistan or Bangladesh", which the source said, "was because of the Sri Lanka Army’s successful military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), one of the world’s deadliest terrorist organisations at the time."