Ex-president Rajapaksa's son arrested by Lanka police on corruption charges
Colombo, Jan 25 (PTI): Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa's son Yoshitha Rajapaksa was arrested by police on Saturday on corruption charges in a property purchase case.
Ex-navy officer Yoshitha was arrested from their home territory of Beliatta over the investigation of alleged misconduct in the purchase of the property during the term of his father’s presidency prior to 2015.
Yoshitha is the second among Mahinda Rajapaksa's three sons.
His uncle and former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was also quizzed by the police last week on the same property - a holiday home in the southern religious resort of Kataragama.
The arrest came as Mahinda Rajapaksa filed a fundamental rights petition on Friday in the Supreme Court seeking its intervention to reinstate his security, which was significantly reduced by the government last month.
Since the formation of a new government led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in November last year, Mahinda Rajapaksa's eldest son and legislator Namal Rajapaksa was quizzed by the police over another property case alongside an employee of Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The new government in the run-up to elections had vowed to arrest everyone accused of wrongdoing during Mahinda Rajapaksa's presidency between 2005 and 2015.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
