Unidentified PA activist yesterday afternoon threw a hand grenade at a vehicle convoy carrying UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, Kurunegala District candidate Rohitha Bogollagama and several other party men in the Wariyapola police area.

However, the vehicle carrying the UNP leader was not hit in the blast.

Bogollagama, an ex-Director General of the then Greater Colombo Economic Commission, yesterday said that several vehicles were damaged in the blast.

He had been travelling with Wickremesinghe in the UNP leader’s Nissan Patrol at the time of the blast. "We were on our way to Kurunegala," he said blaming the PA leadership in the North Western Province of ordering the attack.

Bogollagama said that attack was an indication that the PA does not believe in a free and fair election.

About an hour before the grenade attack, a close associate of top PA leader in the North Western Province was shot dead during a clash between supporters of the PA and the UNP at Wariyapola town.

Police said that there had been a heated argument between rival party activists and the PA activist was gunned down. Additional police were deployed in the area to control rival activists, the sources said.

There had been over 200 election related incidents including over a half a dozen killings in the past few weeks. The dead include two PA candidates shot dead in the east by suspected LTTE gunmen. [SF]