{"id":170045,"date":"2016-11-06T00:35:43","date_gmt":"2016-11-05T19:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=170045"},"modified":"2016-11-06T00:35:43","modified_gmt":"2016-11-05T19:05:43","slug":"aava-has-no-links-to-army-ltte-state-minister-of-defence-ruwan-wijewardene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/aava-has-no-links-to-army-ltte-state-minister-of-defence-ruwan-wijewardene\/","title":{"rendered":"Aava Has No Links To Army, LTTE \u2013 State Minister Of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>State Minister of Defence <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Ruwan+Wijewardene&amp;x=4&amp;y=5\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Ruwan Wijewardene<\/span><\/a> has today declared that the Avaa group has no links to any political party or the LTTE and neither is the group being controlled by the Army.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_148100\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Ruwan-Wijewardene.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-148100\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-148100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Ruwan-Wijewardene-150x150.png\" alt=\"Ruwan Wijewardene\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Ruwan-Wijewardene-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Ruwan-Wijewardene-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-148100\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ruwan Wijewardene<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cSome people are trying to gain political mileage by making various statements. This is biker gang that is intimidating and extorting the people in Jaffna, and they are not connected to any political party or the LTTE, and nor are they controlled by the Army,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Wijewardena also said that the police have been provided with the relevant information with regard to the gang and they are currently carrying out the necessary action against the gang.<\/p>\n<p>The State Minister\u2019s statement also comes amidst a claim made by a senior Minister in the Government who said that the Aava gang was nurtured by a Brigadier in the Army with the blessings of former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n<p>Minister Rajitha Senaratne told the weekly cabinet meeting that the gang was created to intimidate the people in the north and also attack the Rajapaksa opponents, activists and media. However, when the journalists had asked for the name of the Brigadier from Senaratne, the minister had refused to divulge the name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":168185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Aava Has No Links To Army, LTTE \u2013 State Minister Of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/aava-has-no-links-to-army-ltte-state-minister-of-defence-ruwan-wijewardene\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Aava Has No Links To Army, LTTE \u2013 State Minister Of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene - 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