Colombo:A final year undergraduate student attached to a university in Sri Lanka's east was shot dead outside the hostel by unknown gunmen, military sources here said Friday.

The victim, from the majority Sinhalese community identified as S.P. Samarasinghe, is a commerce student in Vandarumulai University in Batticaloa district, some 300 km away from Colombo.

"The reason behind the shooting is unknown. The police are inquiring," a source said.

The killing comes barely two days after over 20 Sinhalese students, who have got admissions into universities located in the north and east, began a protest outside the University Grants Commission (UGC) office in Colombo, demanding their transfer to universities elsewhere in Sri Lanka.

The parents of these students from the southern part of Sri Lanka have joined the round-the-clock sit-in protest.

Speaking to reporters, these parents said that they were not prepared to send their children to the war-hit northern and the eastern provinces "due to security concerns".

"All what we want from UGC is to consider this as a special case and transfer our children to any other university. We will continue this sit-in until our demand is met," a parent from Ratnapura district said.

 

Source : IANS