Sri Lanka's main
opposition party Sunday demanded an independent inquiry into a prison riot that
left 27 convicts dead, alleging many were shot by security forces in a
cold-blooded "massacre".
The United National Party (UNP) called for a
parliamentary investigation into the riot that erupted on Friday evening at the
maximum-security Welikada prison in the capital Colombo.
"This is nothing but a massacre," UNP
spokesman Mangala Samaraweera told AFP. "Most of the convicts appeared to
have been killed in cold blood. We want a parliamentary select committee to go
into this."
Troops were deployed to quell the riots and the
military retained a heavy presence at the sprawling prison complex Sunday.
During the riot, armed inmates climbed onto the
roof and fired at troops and police. A handful escaped and hijacked a
three-wheel rickshaw taxi which was stopped by heavy gunfire from security
personnel.
Prisons Minister Chandrasiri Gajadeera told
parliament Saturday that 27 inmates were killed and 43 others -- including 13
police commandos, four soldiers and two civilians -- were injured.
He said there would be an internal prisons
department inquiry into the riot, which was sparked by a police commando raid
for contraband inside the prison on Friday.
The violence continued until early Saturday with
some prisoners raiding a jail armoury and grabbing about 80 weapons, including
automatic rifles.
Prisons chief P.W. Koddippili said guards were
searching the site Sunday for a small number of guns which were still missing.
Officials declined to say if any prisoners had escaped during the unrest.
Friday's violence was the worst prison riot in
Sri Lanka since 1983, when more than 50 ethnic Tamil prisoners were massacred
at the same jail by Sinhalese convicts during anti-Tamil riots that gripped the
country.
There was similar violence at the same
penitentiary in January when 25 inmates and four guards were injured.
The authorities have yet to release autopsy
reports on the dead. Colombo police chief Anura Senanayake said most of those
killed were hard-core criminals, some of them serving life terms.
The opposition UNP also demanded answers from
the government on how the armed forces were deployed at the weekend, when
emergency laws were no longer in operation after the end of the country's
ethnic war in 2009.
