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| Violent monk threatening the judiciary |
But a section of Sri Lankan Buddhist monks are completely different.
One such section is led by a robed man called Galagod Aththe Gnanasara.
He leads an organization called Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) which means to be a force of Buddhist people. Although this organization is not officially armed, it is extremely violent and uses mobs to instigate violence against their targets.
They often target Muslims and evidently triggered anti-Muslim violence in Aluthgama and Dharga Town in June 2014 which resulted in loss of
At least four people were killed, 80 injured, houses, shops, factories, mosques and a nursery was burnt and 10,000 people (8,000 Muslims and 2,000 Sinhalese) were displaced by the riots.Then government led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa did not conduct the probe properly and no action was initiated against the perpetrators.
In the most recent incident, Glalgoda Aththe Gnanasara forcibly entered Homagama court and verbally abused the judge, the lawyers and a witness of the prosecution of an abduction case. He disrupted court proceedings and left scot-free challenging the entire judiciary system and law enforcement authorities.
The case was against a group of military personnel who are accused of abducting and assassinating a journalist called Prageeth Ekneligoda who remains disappeared since January 26th of 2010.
Rajapaksa regime prevented the probes on the disappearance properly done but the enhanced investigations made a breakthrough after the new government elected in January 2015. The group of military personnel were arrested accordingly.
Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara wants the military officers released and case dropped. He says the abducted journalist is a Tamil Tiger rebel although he is a Sinhalese and no evidence has been found to link him to the presently defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam.
The violent monk threatened Prageeth's wife Sandhya Ekneligoda in the court who struggled fearlessly to seek justice to her husband.
The judge did not issue arrest orders at that moment but lately ordered the monk arrested. Gnanasara came to the court with a violent group of monks and surrendered to court. The monks behaved extremely violently threatening to people, disrupting court proceedings and damaging property.
They did not let the prison authorities to take away the remanded criminal suspect Gnansara.
The Buddhist monks who rampaged the court are yet to be arrested.
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