Rights group demands probe into Sri Lanka police shooting

By BHARATHA MALLAWARACHI and KRISHAN FRANCIS
Associated Press

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — An international human rights group is urging Sri Lankan authorities to conduct a prompt and impartial probe into a police shooting that left one person dead and 13 others injured during protests over the country’s worst economic crisis in decades. New York-based Human Rights Watch asked the government to probe the “apparent use of excessive force by police” in the incident. Tuesday’s shooting was the first by security forces during weeks of protests and reignited widespread demonstrations across the Indian Ocean island nation. The call for an investigations came as Parliament observed a minute of silence in memory of more than 260 people who were killed in 2019 in Islamic State group-inspired suicide bomb attacks on churches and tourist hotels.