May 04, Colombo: A group of supporters of Sri Lanka's main opposition party, the United National Party (UNP) yesterday met with Election Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake and requested to take immediate action to disarm illegal armed groups in the Eastern Province before the upcoming election.

The group including parliamentarians Ravi Karunanayake and Tissa Attanayake informed the Election Commissioner also on the numerous violent activities carried out by the said groups.

Attanayake speaking to the media said, that the UNP had already urged the government to disarm all armed groups that do not have official right to bare arms. “But the government has not given any priority to this request, what it is up to is to win the election by force,” he said.

He blamed the government for letting one party to do politics with arms and another party to become victims of the other.

“This is a serious situation, we asked the government to take immediate steps to disarm the armed groups,” he said. “If it is not being done, then we have to resort to some other measure to force the government to disarm the groups before the election,” he added.