Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake visited Mandaitivu on Monday, pledging to press ahead with plans to construct the proposed Jaffna International Cricket Stadium, despite concerns over environmental destruction in the Tamil North-East.

Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission (HRCSL) has issued a warning on the ongoing investigation into the Chemmani mass grave in Jaffna, stating there is a “reasonable likelihood” that the burials were unlawful and the result of extrajudicial killings.

Former minister and Sinhala nationalist Udaya Gammanpila has fled to Thailand as he faces arrest in Sri Lanka over remarks in which he used the word “kotiya” — a term widely recognised as a derogatory slur against Tamils.

Five high-profile underworld figures who were arrested in Indonesia and repatriated to Sri Lanka last night, are being held and interrogated under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), police confirmed today.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath has issued a stern response to remarks made by Indian actor-turned-politician C. Joseph Vijay, who recently called for the retrieval of Katchatheevu island to protect Tamil Nadu’s fishermen.

“Katchatheevu Island belongs to Sri Lanka. It is an island belonging to Sri Lanka. Therefore, that will never change,” Herath told reporters during the weekly Cabinet press briefing in Colombo.

Amazon UK has confirmed it has removed from sale the memoir of Sri Lanka’s former navy chief Wasantha Karannagoda, who remains sanctioned in the UK for command responsibility over “human rights violations including illegal killings and activities amounting to torture.”