Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has rejected media reports which said that he claimed at a cabinet meeting about alleged Indian involvement to assassinate him. He also called the Indian Prime Minister to refute the allegations and cleare his stand on this issue.
Indian newspaper The Hindu had reported on Oct.16 citing an internal source that President Sirisena had told the ministers present at a weekly cabinet meeting that the Indian intelligence agency RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) was trying to assassinate him. It had also reported him as saying that “Prime Minister Narendra Modi may not be aware of the plan” to kill him.
The Prime Minister Office (PMO) issued a statement on Oct.17 saying that Sri Lankan President has talked Indian PM on phone over this issue.
“The President of Sri Lanka stated that he categorically rejected the reports in sections of media about him alluding to the involvement of India in any manner whatsoever in an alleged plot to assassinate the President and a former Defense Secretary of Sri Lanka,” the PMO said in its statement.
“He mentioned that the mischievous and mala fide reports were utterly baseless and false, and seemed intended to create misunderstanding between the two leaders as well as damage the cordial relations between the two friendly neighbors,” it added.
The Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) also issued a statement and called the news report baseless that that undermines the importance of bilateral relations between two neighboring countries.
“It is disappointing therefore that matters of this nature have become the subject of distorted and erroneous media reports taking the president’s remarks out of context, which has given rise to further media and social media speculation and the spread of unfounded fear among the public,” said Sri Lankan MFA in its statement.
This news has come at a time when there has been wide coverage about an alleged “murder plot” of Sri Lankan President and former Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The Sri Lankan Police had also arrested an Indian national last month from the residence of an anti-corruption sleuth for being aware of an alleged plan to kill these leaders.