JRT POST

An investigation was ordered after a social media post showed that soldiers forced ethnic minority Muslims to kneel on the street as punishment for violating COVID lockout rules.

The Sri Lankan military has launched an investigation after social media posts showed soldiers forcing ethnic minority Muslims to kneel on the street as punishment for ignoring the blockade rules.

According to an AFP report on Sunday, armed soldiers ordered Muslim civilians to kneel on a road in the town of Elavur, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) east of the capital Colombo, with their hands in the air.

Residents said they thought the order was degrading and insulting, while officials admitted that the military has no right to impose such punishments.

The victim was on the way to two restaurants to buy food.

The military said in a statement on Sunday: “After some photos went viral, depicting the suspected harassment in the Eravur area, a preliminary investigation by the gendarmerie has begun.”

It stated that the official in charge had been removed and the soldiers involved were ordered to leave the town.

“The army will take the strictest disciplinary action against all wrong army personnel,” the army added, which is a rare manifestation of willingness to investigate itself.

Sri Lanka is undergoing a one-month lockdown to curb the third wave of coronavirus infections. Since the outbreak began in mid-April, the number of deaths from the virus has more than quadrupled to 2,531.

The military faced war crime charges in the decades-long Tamil separatist war that ended in 2009 and has been deployed to help police and health authorities implement virus restrictions.

Successive governments have denied that the army killed approximately 40,000 civilians in the final phase of the separatist war, and that it killed more than 100,000 people between 1972 and 2009.