{"id":212248,"date":"2020-08-01T00:59:37","date_gmt":"2020-07-31T19:29:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=212248"},"modified":"2020-08-01T01:19:29","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T19:49:29","slug":"are-they-black-cats-mr-president-wigneswaran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/are-they-black-cats-mr-president-wigneswaran\/","title":{"rendered":"Are They Black Cats Mr. President? &#8211; Wigneswaran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>By <a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=C.V.+Wigneswaran\">C.V. Wigneswaran<\/a> &#8211;<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_105555\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/C.V.-Wigneswaran.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-105555\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-105555\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/C.V.-Wigneswaran-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/C.V.-Wigneswaran-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/C.V.-Wigneswaran-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-105555\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Justice C.V. Wigneswaran<\/p><\/div>\n<p>His Excellency Gotabaya Rajapaksa<\/p>\n<p>Presidential Secretariat<\/p>\n<p>Colombo\u00a001<\/p>\n<p>May it please\u00a0your Excellency!<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><b>Withdrawal\u00a0of the Military from the North and East\u00a0during the Parliamentary Election 2020<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The continued presence of the Military in the Northern Province would be hampering a free and fair Election on August 5th. May I suggest with all humility that the Military be restricted to their barracks during the Election? I fail to see the need for such concentrated presence of the Armed Forces\u00a0in the North at this time.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday (28th July 2020) there was a surprising incident. While I was on stage at an Election Meeting at Gurunagar last night around 8 pm 14 soldiers attired in completely black uniforms (Black Cats?) on Motor Cycles\u00a0(two each in seven motor cycles) drove into the arena of the Meeting made disturbing noise with their raised engines, perambulated around\u00a0and waited until I left the meeting after a few minutes. Then when my car went out of the area of the meeting the seven motor cycles\u00a0with 14 men on them rode around my car, parked for some time on the sides, cut into the path of the car and drove on\u00a0single\u00a0file in front until they disappeared\u00a0into a side lane. My Police were with me in the car. I am not sure if they wanted to convey a message to me. But such activities just before the Election, though they would not scare an old veteran like me, might convey the wrong message\u00a0to the People which might curtail the voting process.<\/p>\n<p>I hope this incident would be investigated and acted upon. May the Parliamentary Election 2020 in the Northern Province be free and fair undisturbed by the presence of the Army. Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Yours truly,<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Justice C.V. Wigneswaran<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p>Leader of Thamizh Makkal Thesiya Kootani<\/p>\n<p>Secretary General, Thamizh Makkal Kootani<\/p>\n<p>Former Chief Minister<\/p>\n<p>Northern Province<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Copies:<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p>Hon\u2019 Prime Minister of Sri Lanka<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Chairman, Election Commission<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":212252,"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-212248","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>Are They Black Cats Mr. President? - Wigneswaran - 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\/are-they-black-cats-mr-president-wigneswaran\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are They Black Cats Mr. President? - Wigneswaran - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/are-they-black-cats-mr-president-wigneswaran\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-07-31T19:29:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-07-31T19:49:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/army-Sri-Lanka-.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"550\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"C.V. 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