Religious disputes: Special Unit starts work
While launching the new police unit to investigate religious issues, Inspector General of Police (IGP) N.K. Illangakone said that the main reason to set up such a unit was to enhance and speed up the process of investigating complaints related to religious issues without allowing it to get complicated.
“This is a very significant step. We will investigate whatever disputes that arise without any delay. This is the main purpose of investigating these matters,” he added.
IGP Illangakone said that complaints of any religious disputes can be brought to the notice of the unit on Tel Nos: 0112307688 and 0112307406. The new unit was opened on the 5th floor of the Ministry of Buddha Sasana and Religious Affairs situated at the Dharmapala Mawatha, Colombo 2.
Buddha Sasana and Religious Affairs Ministry Secretary M.K.P Dissanayake said there were more than 20,000 religious places and out of that 10,000 were Buddhist 5,000 Hindu, 2,500 Christian and 2,500 Muslim.
“Because the population has increased along with new communities, the need to have new religious places have also increased,” he said.
“We have religious coexistence but the issue had got complicated when there were instances of building new religious places by bypassing the accepted procedures,” he noted.
The unit was established after President Mahinda Rajapaksa instructed Inspector General of Police (IGP) N.K Illangakone last week to establish a special investigations unit to investigate complaints related to religious disputes.
The unit will be headed by an Assistant Superintended of Police (ASP) and there will be a Chief Inspector and six police constables.
The police officers attached to the unit will be given training on the culture and customs of a multi racial, multi cultural and multi ethnic society and rights of the citizens in such a society.