Police and riot squads were deployed after three inmates were killed and nearly two dozen others injured in separate prison riots in Sri Lanka.
Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told parliament on Friday that one inmate died when 40 prisoners tried to break out of New Magazine Prison in the capital Colombo late Thursday. Two other inmates died in a second riot on Friday morning at Kuruwita prison, about 80 kilometers from the capital. Between the two incidents, 23 inmates were injured and hospitalized. Minister Wijepala said police and special task forces had brought both riots under control.
Separately, police told Reuters they fired tear gas at rioting inmates at an open prison in the town of Negombo, about 40 kilometers from Colombo, to control the situation on Friday. Riot police at all three prisons returned inmates who had climbed onto rooftops or moved to open areas back to their cells.
Minister Wijepala told parliament the violence was linked to drug traffickers and rival criminal gangs. He said the government was investigating whether the riots were coordinated. "When you take all these incidents together, it looks like there is an arrangement behind it and could be a conspiracy to cause disruption, but we can only say more after a comprehensive investigation," he stressed.
The unrest comes a month after 10 guards and 20 inmates were killed in two days of clashes at a prison in Negombo. An inmate was also killed and several injured in a riot last weekend at Mahara prison, about 14 kilometers from Colombo.
Overcrowding in Sri Lanka's prisons has reached crisis levels. Facilities are packed with more than 39,000 inmates in a system designed for about 10,000, according to recent remarks by Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara in parliament. Senaka Perera, president of the Prisoners' Rights Protection Committee, said: "The number of prisoners in Sri Lanka is now four times the capacity. The reality is they have been patient for too long."
A large number of the inmates are suspects awaiting trial on drug-related charges. New laws tightening bail conditions have contributed to the rise in prison overcrowding, Perera said. Sri Lanka is planning a constitutional amendment to extend the tenure of high court judges by two years, aiming to clear a backlog of more than one million cases and reduce the number of inmates.
