BRITISH ANTI-TERRORISM LAWS SOON INSTEAD OF PTA: RANIL

British style antiterrorism laws will be introduced soon instead of the existing Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Saturday.

“We will introduce new laws to prevent terrorism which will be based on the British antiterrorism laws,”the Prime Minister said at the annual convention of Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum held in Colombo over the weekend.

He said the government will not misuse the existing PTA at any time as per the pledge given.“we will confine the PTA only to matters concerned with security,”he said.

Referring to the recent media reports which warned of a possible rise of LTTE ,the Prime Minister assured that such a thing will not happen.

“LTTE cannot come up again.they won’t come up no matter how much one may cry and shout.“If they come up again then legal action have to be taken against the former president as he had failed to eradicate terrorism as he has claimed,” he said.

Further he said government would take steps to prevent the rise of terrorism again. “We will do the needful if the LTTE tries to raise its head again and will carry out any arrests if needed and anyone who is arrested will be produced before courts., he added. “All communities got together and ensured democracy, put a stop to extremism and to the fear psychosis.we are not for extremism be it Buddhist, Sinhalese, Muslim,tamil or Christian. We have seen how the other countries have suffered because of extremism.we have to sustain the freedom which we have gained. Media has a special role to play in this process. I expect the media will take up this role.the biggest threat to the free media today comes from the media itself not from anyone else,” the Prime Minister also said.

Further he assured that the lands in Kilinochchi which are held by the army would be given back to the people in several months.