COLOMBO, 17 November 2005 — At least five people, including two police, were killed in Sri Lanka despite a nationwide security alert on the eve of today’s presidential elections, officials said. Unidentified gunmen shot dead two constables in separate incidents in the eastern province where police also found a land mine near a polling station, a police official said.
“It’s possible the attacks and the land mine were aimed at disrupting the election,” the official told AFP. “But we’ve strengthened security with more policemen.”
He said the bodies of two Tamil guerrillas were found elsewhere in the region while another man was found killed overnight in what appeared to be rebel internecine clashes.
Private surveys suggest the vote is a tight race between the present and former prime ministers of the island, racked by a decades-old ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority.
Heavily armed troops were backing 64,000 police deployed to guard more than 10,000 polling booths and 22 counting centers across the island, police said.
“We have also deployed a special motorcycle unit that will respond to emergencies in key areas,” police chief Chandra Fernando said. Thousands of public servants deployed to conduct the election were on the move yesterday, traveling to far-flung areas to set up polling booths for the 13.3 million voters. “Everything is in place now,” Elections Commissioner’s spokesman Rasika Peiris said. Peiris said international and local election monitors from two private organizations would be allowed access to polling stations. The European Union is deploying 72 foreign observers.
In the town of Galle, 112 kilometers south of Colombo, local election chief Dias Punchihewa was overseeing preparations to stage the vote in the tsunami-hit coastal district.
“At each and every polling station there will be two police constables and at vulnerable ones it will be three or four,” Punchihewa said. Several roads in the capital were closed yesterday as part of tight security for the main election secretariat and the counting center.
Mobile patrols were stepped up together with an increase in checkpoints manned by troops and police, Colombo’s deputy Police Inspector General Pujith Jayasundara said.