PM assures through investigation into Balage's murder

Uditha Kumarasinghe and Irangika Range

Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka told Parliament yesterday that he would personally look into the proceedings of investigation on the assassination of JVP member Nandana Balage and has assured that the Government would not shield anyone if found guilty. "I have personally called the Attorney-General and obtained a full report of the current situation of the investigation," the Prime Minister said.

He said the Government has no intention to hush up the investigation.

"Only it has taken some time to properly investigate the case due to contradictory statements given by the witnesses," he said. Since there are contradictory statements, the Police has forwarded all these statements to the Attorney General's Department and are awaiting instructions to arrest the responsible persons.

The Prime Minister was responding to the special statement made by JVP Group Parliamentarian Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

"If these statements were produced before Courts, the case could have collapsed easily since there are contradictory statements," he said.

Therefore, the Attorney General's Department has given special instructions to the Police to conduct a thorough investigation and produce the real culprits before Courts. "Soon after the incident occurred, the driver who traveled with assassinated Balage in the vehicle had made a statement to the Police.

Hours after, another person who was traveling in the same vehicle had made a different statement. Later, Police recorded statements of 17 persons including the eye-witness," he said.

The weapons said to be used by the suspects and the bullets recovered from the body of Balage would be submitted to the Government Analyst for further investigations.

The Premier said that the Government would do everything to assure an impartial investigation and the guilty would be punished, he said. JVP Group Parliamentarian Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that Balage had been gunned down 15 days ago, but none of the culprits have been arrested so far.

He urged the Government to take the real culprits into custody.