The head of a Sinhala nationalist organisation has demanded that former Chief Minister of the Northern Province C V Wigneswaran is arrested by Sri Lankan police after he said it was wrong to call Sri Lankan a Buddhist country last week.

Dan Priyasad, head of the Nawa Sinhale National Movement, filed an official complaint at Sri Lanka’s Police Headquarters and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) demanding the senior Tamil politician be arrested.

On Saturday, Wigneswaran had said in an interview that it is “wrong to say Sri Lanka is a Buddhist Country”. 

“The Northern and Eastern Provinces have never been Sinhala,” he said. “They were areas of residence of the Tamil speaking people… The North and East must be separated as being majority non – Buddhist.”

He went on to add,

“The North Eastern Tamil speaking people are conscious of their antiquity. They are conscious of the richness of their language. They have a highly emotional bond towards their traditional homelands. But they feel constrained that the majority Sinhalese are not allowing them to blossom out on their own in their region but want to control them.”

“They are entitled to self determination in terms of International Law. Owing to the above said they abhor anyone trying to control them and dominate them on false premises. The Tamil speaking have always occupied the North and East and they still are the majority in the North and East.”