Colombo (Srilanka) – Sri Lankan police have used tear gas and water cannon to disperse student-led rallies near Kandy, the country’s second largest city, amid mounting calls for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to quit over an economic crisis that has resulted in fuel, food, and other essentials shortages.
Hundreds of students defied a curfew to attend the protest on Sunday, yelling “Go home, Gota,” a reference to the president’s nickname, as they walked out of the University of Peradeniya and towards Kandy’s city centre.
But police stopped them soon after they left the university premises.
The Peradeniya rally was the latest display of dissent against Rajapaksa, who declared a state of emergency on Friday and imposed a 36-hour curfew that began at 6pm on Saturday to quell unrest over the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.
The curfew is to run until 6am (00:30 GMT) on Monday.
But just within the first 12 hours of the curfew, some 664 people had been detained for violating the measure, and despite the crackdown in Peradeniya, scattered protests were reported across the country throughout the day, including in the capital, Colombo