Minister of Transport Dallas Alahapperuma yesterday said Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had committed a grave crime by trying to create religious disunity among the Sri Lankan Muslims when he said the President of Iran who visited the country wanted to oppose the Muslims of the south.

Addressing a UPFA press conference at the Parliamentary Complex he said there never was any sectarian disunity among the Sri Lankan Muslims and according to Buddhism there was an unpardonable grave sin called ‘Anantharya papa’ if one made disunity among the Sangha. Trying to cause disunity among the Sri Lankan Muslims was an equally grave sin for which there could be no pardon.

Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had also said it was unethical to have invited the President of Iran to our country while there was an election campaign going on but he had forgotten that during 1976 when the Mulkirigala by election was on the Non Aligned Summit with hundreds of world leaders was held and no local political leader opposed it. Wickremesinghe had also forgotten that he had flaunted photographs of US President George Bush putting his arm round Wickremesinghe during the last General election of 2004 which he had lost.

The UNP was already aware that it would lose the Eastern Province poll and was only finding excuses for its certain defeat as the people of the East were aware of the massive development programme and the freedom they now enjoyed, Alahapperuma said.

Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said the government after the Mavil Aru debacle resettled the Muslims and Tamils who were chased out of Mutur by the LTTE while the UNP had forgotten those people. The UNP always forgot the people who helped them and even today the strong UNP member and former Minister S. B. Dissanayake is not being brought into parliament since the leadership was afraid of him.

Leader of the House and Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said the small number of complaints in the Eastern Province was no indication of any threats to democracy as even in all elections of the South there were hundreds of complaints. But among the few complaints in the East there were no election offences or major complaints except minor offences that were found in all parts of the country in normal times.