Chairman of the Sectoral Oversight Committee (SOC) on National Security, Dr. Sarath Weerasekera MP said that special attention should be paid to a number of matters in the context of national security including the proposed Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) Bill and religious extremism including in the latter case unregistered madrasa schools and foreign preachers and lecturers.

He stated thus when the Committee met this week to discuss the future programme of the Committee. This Committee, according to him, is one of the SOCs that has been assigned a very responsible task and which is expected to focus on a number of areas related to national security in the coming period. The Committee would, he noted, actively intervene to strengthen national security without being confined to the recommendations made so far.

“Even though terrorism has been curbed, there is still a risk of religious extremism operating in this country. Special attention should be paid to unregistered madrasa schools that only teach religion and language, and to people who come to Sri Lanka from abroad and give extremist views and lectures. The 2015-2019 SOC on National Security has submitted a report containing very important recommendations to Parliament on defeating this extremism, and it is expected to implement them in the future,” he explained regarding religious extremism.

He added that since Sri Lanka, which is located in a strategically important position, has had to face various physical invasions and enemy threats in the past, and since the latest phase of the same could be through foreign agreements, it is the responsibility of this Committee to study those agreements and ascertain as to whether there is a threat to national security. He also said that attention should be paid to the proposed CBSL Bill.

The need to strengthen the security of the country by stopping the riots that threaten the lives and property of the people was also discussed by the Committee which also emphasised that if there was any deficiency in the security levels especially in the incidents that occurred on 9 July, such things should not happen.

There was also a discussion regarding a stock of gold found by the Army and it was also decided to look into the matter further.

Apart from this, attention was also paid to a number of matters including drug importation and distribution, cybercrimes, defamation through social media and crime control. Accordingly, the relevant parties are expected to be called before the Committee and necessary measures are expected to be taken, Dr. Weerasekera said.