• Letter to Prez proposes land and police powers to be with Centre while respecting Provincial ethno-religious population ratios and simultaneous PCs majority concurrence  

The Deputy Leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Minister of Environment Naseer Ahamed, in a letter to the President on behalf of the SLMC, stated that while a number of Muslims support the devolution of power to the Northern and Eastern Provinces, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution has to be amended.

Any solution to the existential ethnic problems of the people in the Northern and Eastern Provinces through the implementation of the 13th Amendment could never be a lasting sustainable solution without the participation of the Muslim and Sinhalese communities, he said. 

The Party also proposed to repeal Article 154(3) of the Constitution, thus removing the power to merge provinces. The SLMC also proposed to vest land and land settlement-related powers entirely with the Centre, subject to provisions that all such powers will be exercised in any province only with the concurrence of a two-thirds majority resolution of the relevant provincial council (PC) and subject to the non-violation of the ethno-religious population ratio of the relevant province as per the 1981 census. Regarding police powers, the party stated that, “The law and order and all police powers are to be exclusively vested only in the Centre but that the composition of the services personnel responsible for law and order, in any province, should reflect the ethno-religious population ratio of the said province as per the 1981 Census. 

The SLMC also emphasised that the Government must initiate immediately the resettlement of all Northern Muslims and restore the lands and properties to the Muslims who were driven out during the war, cease all anti-Muslim campaigns in any form and means, reduce the number and the role, except in an extraordinary emergency, of the armed forces in the two provinces, and establish unity, peace and harmony amongst all ethno-religious communities through a genuine consultative process.