Responding to a question on whether a statement made by the President recently that he had learnt a lot from India's mistake in handing police control to state governments and if it was an excuse for not implementing the 13th Amendment, Rajapaksa has said that police powers cannot be decentralized.

"India is a huge country — you can't compare it with Sri Lanka. I always say that police powers can't be given to provinces," he has said.

"There are too many issues. Look what happened during the Mumbai attacks, when it took so much time to get the commandos, because all kinds of clearances were required. That is why I feel that police powers on the island should be centralized," the President has observed.