An international human rights group urged Sri Lankan authorities to conduct a prompt and impartial probe into a police shooting that left one person dead and 13 others injured during protests over the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Human Rights Watch asked the government to probe the “apparent use of excessive force by police” in the incident and “take appropriate steps against any wrongdoing.”
Patricia Grossman, the group’s associate Asia director, said the use of live ammunition by police against demonstrators “appears to be a flagrant misuse of lethal force.”
The statement came hours after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa pledged an impartial and transparent inquiry into the shooting, which was the first by security forces during weeks of protests and reignited widespread demonstrations across the Indian Ocean island nation.
The shooting occurred in Rambukkana, 90 kilometers (55 miles) northeast of the capital, Colombo. Police said the demonstrators were blocking railway tracks and roads and ignored police warnings to disperse. Police also said protesters threw rocks at them.
The calls for an investigation came as Parliament on Thursday observed a minute of silence in memory of more than 260 people killed in 2019 in Islamic State group-inspired suicide bomb attacks on churches and tourist hotels.
Protesters who have camped outside the office of Sri Lanka’s president for 13 days demanding his resignation also offered alms to Buddhist and Christian clergy in memory of the dead.
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