Colombo, May 21: A Sri Lankan woman MP broke down in Parliament over a mob attack which destroyed her house and wondered whether she did the right thing in return to the island nation after giving up a comfortable life in Switzerland.
Actor-turned-politician Geeta Kumarasinghe turned emotional as she spoke in Parliament on Friday about her ordeal. A member of the ruling SLPP, the Galle District MP said she lost her awards won at international forums in the arson attack on May 9. In an impassioned speech, she said she had given up her Swiss citizenship to serve the people of her district and had been dealt a cruel blow, the Sri Lankan media reported on Saturday. “I have done no wrong to anyone.
As a single woman I came on this journey on my own. I had to stand on my own to get where I am here.” She said the attackers came with swords and knives and that she had to hide inside her room in fear as the mob attacked the house she had built on the land she had inherited from her parents. “I think I should bid farewell to politics.
How can we carry on if this is the kind of response we get when we engage in politics? “They say more women must come to politics and then women come under attack in this way,” she said. Kumarasinghs’s was one of many houses of SLPP leaders which came under attack across the country after a pro-government mob attacked anti-government protesters in Colombo. The violence led to the resignation of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
