An opposition Sri Lankan legislator and his bodyguard were killed while at least 11 others including the suspect were injured on Tuesday in a shooting incident in a Hindu temple in Colombo, according to the government.
Thiagarajah Maheswaran, the slain Tamil legislator from the main opposition United National Party (UNP), was the target in the killing carried out by an unidentified gunman, the government's defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told reporters.
Rambukwella said Maheswaran and one of his body guards were shot at inside the Ponnambalawaneswar Hindu temple in Colombo's northern Kochchikade area at around 8:30 a.m. local time (0500 GMT)and succumbed to their injuries in hospital.
The gunman was wounded in return fire from a personal security officer of Maheswaran and 11 others were also injured in the incident.
Rambukwella said the suspect, identified as a resident in Jaffna, is under close custody of police and receiving treatment at the National Hospital in Colombo.
Pro-Tamil Tiger sources said the shooting came a few hours after the parliamentarian said he would reveal details on how abductions and killings in Jaffna are managed by the Sri Lankan government.
They also claimed that the government recently reduced the number of guards provided to the legislator from 18 to two.
Coming from the Tamil-dominated northern town of Jaffna, Maheswaran was the sole Tamil legislator in the UNP.
He had represented the UNP in parliament since the year of 2000after being elected from the northern Jaffna district.
However, in the 2004 parliamentarian election he switched to contest from the capital of Colombo and was elected. He was often accused of being a pro-Tamil Tiger legislator.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the murder.
Maheswaran became the third Tamil legislator to have been assassinated since the end of 2005.
Joseph Pararajasingham of the main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), was gunned down in 2005 while another TNA legislator Nadarajah Raviraj was killed in Colombo in November 2006.
However, no one had been arrested for any of the previous killings.
Source: Xinhua
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