The Chief Minister of the Northern Province Justice C V Wigneswaran was set to meet Sri Lanka's president and prime minister in Colombo today, in order to discuss the ongoing issue of military occupation of civilians lands in the Tamil North-East.
However, the meeting was postponed after the chief minister was hospitalised with a sudden illness, reports the Daily Mirror. There is no further information on his condition at the time of reporting.
Justice Wigneswaran was reportedly set to seek assurances from Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe that the Sri Lankan military will no longer take over and occupy land for various government projects.
The meeting comes as Tamil protests against military occupation in the North-East continues, with a spontaneous sit in demonstration taking place last week in Jaffna, after the military attempted to carry out a survey of land earmarked for government projects.
“The land rightfully belongs to the Tamil civilians, but instead of giving them the land back, they are now trying to take the land by force for various development programmes,” an official from the Northern Provincial Council told Colombo Telegraph. “This land belongs to the people and it should be returned back to them, this is what the government promised.”