{"id":304833,"date":"2018-10-30T05:25:09","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=304833"},"modified":"2018-10-30T05:25:09","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:25:09","slug":"sri-lanka-petroleum-minister-arjuna-ranatunga-arrested-over-fatal-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/sri-lanka-petroleum-minister-arjuna-ranatunga-arrested-over-fatal-shooting\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka: Petroleum Minister Arjuna Ranatunga arrested over fatal shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-304835 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Arjuna-Ranatunga-jpg-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"499\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/Arjuna-Ranatunga-jpg-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/Arjuna-Ranatunga-jpg-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/Arjuna-Ranatunga-jpg-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/Arjuna-Ranatunga-jpg-696x392.jpg 696w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/Arjuna-Ranatunga-jpg-1068x601.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/Arjuna-Ranatunga-jpg-747x420.jpg 747w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/Arjuna-Ranatunga-jpg.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 499px) 100vw, 499px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Sri Lanka\u2019s petroleum minister Arjuna Ranatunga was arrested on Monday for the violent incident that killed one person during the ongoing political crisis in the country, police said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The incident occurred on Sunday when bodyguards of 54-year-old Ranatunga, a loyalist of ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, fired live rounds at the supporters of the new premier Mahinda Rajapaksa, leaving one person dead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Ranatunga, captain of Sri Lanka\u2019s 1996 cricket World Cup winning side was taken in after trade unions accused him of ordering the shooting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Sunday&#8217;s shooting was the first since President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe, plunging the country into a constitutional crisis.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">On Monday, Unions went on strike in protest over the shooting, sparking long queues for fuel at gas stations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">According to Ranatunga&#8217;s office, hundreds of people gathered at the ministry on Sunday when Ranatunga appeared, beating his staff and trying to take him hostage. Therefore, one of\u00a0Ranatunga&#8217;s bodyguards, a policeman, opened fire.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Three people were struck, one person succumbed to his injuries and two others were hospitalised in the shooting incident and the bodyguard was arrested on Sunday following a tense situation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Sri Lanka is facing a political crisis after President Sirisena sacked prime minister Wickremesinghe on Friday and replaced him with former strongman Rajapaksa.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sri Lanka\u2019s petroleum minister Arjuna Ranatunga was arrested on Monday for the violent incident that killed one person during the ongoing political crisis in the country, police said. The incident occurred on Sunday when bodyguards of 54-year-old Ranatunga, a loyalist of ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, fired live rounds at the supporters of the new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":304835,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[53],"tags":[9084,9085,5721],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304833"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304837,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304833\/revisions\/304837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/304835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}