Sri Lanka IGP refusing to quit despite president’s request
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s police chief has refused a request by President Maithripala Sirisena to step down following suicide bombings on churches and hotels, two sources at the president’s office said on Saturday, deepening the rift at top levels of government.
Sirisena, facing criticism over the failure to thwart the attacks, blamed the inspector general of police Pujith Jayasundara and defence secretary Hemesiri Fernando for not sharing advance warnings of the attacks with him.
Fernando resigned earlier in the week, but Jayasundara was holding on, the two officials said.
“He has refused to resign despite the president’s request,” one of the sources said.
Under Sri Lanka’s constitution, only parliament can remove the police chief through a lengthy process designed to shield officers from political interference.
The attacks in which more than 250 people were killed have exposed the divisions between Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, with both saying they had not seen warnings given by India’s spy service about impending strikes on churches and the Indian embassy including one just hours before the attacks.
“If we had any inkling, and we had not taken action, I would have handed in my resignation immediately,” Wickremesinghe told the BBC.
“But what do you do when you are out of the loop?”
Sirisena tried to sack Wickremesinghe last year, and experts believe the feud could have played a part in Sri Lanka’s failure to act on intelligence warnings given weeks before the attacks.
Jayasundara, the police chief, was handpicked for the job by Wickremesinghe.
An officer at the police department said the police chief had not resigned but did not come to work on Saturday. — Reuters