Police in Chennai arrested a Sri Lankan national on Tuesday, suspected of being an ISI agent in Pakistan's intelligence service, the Times of India reported.

The suspect, 37-year-old Sakir Hussain from Kandy in Sri Lanka's Central Province, has links to a Pakistani terrorist group and was operating on the instructions of the Pakistani High Commission in Sri Lanka, the paper said.

"In his confession, he admitted to the role of a Pakistani official. It was a shocking revelation. We got some explosive information. The operation is still on," the Times of India quoted a senior [Indian] official as saying.

Photograph JPC

Three Muslim councillors of the Western Province are to cross over to the ruling coalition, UPFA, the Island has reported.

The cross over of the councillors, two elected from the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and one from the All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC), will increase the UPFA's numbers in the Western Provincial Assembly to 59, the assembly's secretary, Hemantha Samarakoon is reported as saying.

The Sri Lankan Ambassador to Italy has called on the Sri Lankan government to take steps to ‘ban’ a bar named after Buddha in the Italian city of Parma, reported Ceylon Today.

Sri Lankan residents in Italy recently protested against the ‘Buddha Bar’, calling on the ambassador to take action.

Ambassador Nawalage Bennett Cooray told Ceylon Today that he had written to Sri Lanka’s External Affairs Ministry, adding that the Sri Lankan community in Italy was disturbed over the restaurant’s name.

"We have the right to look into it as it amounts to ridiculing a religion. I have informed the Ministry and wanted them to take immediate steps to ban the Buddha Bar," said Cooray.

Abuse in Sri Lanka’s military is on a "systematic level", Human Rights Watch's Asia advocacy advisor, John Sifton, said in an interview with Frances Alonzo of Voice of America regarding recent video evidence showing abuse of female military recruits by their seniors.

"If this is how they treat their own recruits, one can only imagine how bad the abuses are against ordinary Tamil civilians," Sifton said, stating that there was near complete impunity, with almost no interest in accountability.

See extracts of the interview below:

“This [abuse of recruits] is indicative of the fact that the Sri Lankan military has a terrible record of sexual violence against the general population. And if this is how they treat their own recruits, one can only imagine how bad the abuses are against ordinary Tamil civilians and Sri Lankan civilians. There was a very big report that came out recently about sexual violence by the military. Quite simply put, the Sri Lankan military has a terrible record,” Sifton said.

“Generally speaking, of course, the Sri Lankan military and the Sri Lankan government don’t have a great record of transparency or accountability for abuses. These allegations have not been made in a vacuum. Incredibly serious violations of sexual abuse have been made against the Sri Lankan military last month, last year, the year before, in context of the final conflict against the Tamil Tigers in 2009. And there is a whole slew of allegations against them that have yet to be investigated properly.”

The Sri Lankan military spokesperson, Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya, denied reports that troops had conducted a search operation at the men's residence of the University of Jaffna last Friday.

“It is a baseless allegation done for a fishy reason," Brigadier Wanigasooriya told The Nation.

Photograph @HugoSwire