12-14-2004, 07:41 PM
PK Balachanddran
Colombo, December 14
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a partner in the Sri Lankan government, has said that Sri Lankans should invite the Bollywood icon Shahrukh Khan to the island again, to "erase the bad image" created by the grenade blast at his concert in Colombo last Saturday.
The party said in a press release that Shahrukh Khan was so shaken by the experience in Sri Lanka that he told the BBC that from now onwards, "he would not sleep with his head turned towards Sri Lanka."
"Sri Lankans must invite Shahrukh Khan again to show that they are not extremists and religious diehards. He should be invited after the culprits are caught and punished," the release said.
The JVP blamed "politically disgruntled elements" for the blast, which killed two innocent young people, Dilini Maheshika, a 25-year-old newly married girl, who was a telephone operator in the Taj Samudra Hotel, and Lanka Jayasundara, a 22-year-old press photographer working for one of the media sponsors of the event.
The JVP said that the disgruntled elements, which engineered the bomb attack "had sought to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka and damage good relations between Sri Lanka and India."
The statement identified the LTTE as a party interested in seeing that Sri Lanka and India did not have good relations.
The statement also blamed "some defeated political elements" for the blast and said that these elements had been placating the LTTE.
Clearly, the allusion was to the opposition United National Party (UNP), which had been defeated in the April 2004 parliamentary elections, and which was accused of placating the LTTE while it was in power between December 2001 and April 2004.
Colombo, December 14
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a partner in the Sri Lankan government, has said that Sri Lankans should invite the Bollywood icon Shahrukh Khan to the island again, to "erase the bad image" created by the grenade blast at his concert in Colombo last Saturday.
The party said in a press release that Shahrukh Khan was so shaken by the experience in Sri Lanka that he told the BBC that from now onwards, "he would not sleep with his head turned towards Sri Lanka."
"Sri Lankans must invite Shahrukh Khan again to show that they are not extremists and religious diehards. He should be invited after the culprits are caught and punished," the release said.
The JVP blamed "politically disgruntled elements" for the blast, which killed two innocent young people, Dilini Maheshika, a 25-year-old newly married girl, who was a telephone operator in the Taj Samudra Hotel, and Lanka Jayasundara, a 22-year-old press photographer working for one of the media sponsors of the event.
The JVP said that the disgruntled elements, which engineered the bomb attack "had sought to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka and damage good relations between Sri Lanka and India."
The statement identified the LTTE as a party interested in seeing that Sri Lanka and India did not have good relations.
The statement also blamed "some defeated political elements" for the blast and said that these elements had been placating the LTTE.
Clearly, the allusion was to the opposition United National Party (UNP), which had been defeated in the April 2004 parliamentary elections, and which was accused of placating the LTTE while it was in power between December 2001 and April 2004.