New Delhi: Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared a state of emergency Friday a day after hundreds of people tried to storm his residence, news agency AFP reported.
The decision comes at a time when the country is facing an unprecedented economic crisis.
In a gazette notification issued on Friday, Rajapaksa said he believed there was a "public emergency in Sri Lanka", which necessitated the move to invoke tough laws.
The orders give Sri Lanka's security forces sweeping powers to arrest and detain suspects.
In its most severe downturn since Independence fin 1948, Sri Lanka is facing a severe shortage of essential goods, including cooking gas, due to a foreign exchange crunch. There have been sharp price rises. Power cuts last up to 13 hours a day, with the country running out of fuel stock and the government left with no foreign exchange to pay for its fuel imports, according to media reports.
On Thursday, angry protesters gathered in front of President Rajapaksa’s residence in Colombo, demanding his resignation. They shouted slogans, blaming the poor econonomic situation on the government's "gross mismanagement".
The police resorted to firing tear gas shells and using water cannons after the protesters pulled down a steel barricade placed near Gotabaya’s residence.
The authorities had turned off street lights in several parts of capital Colombo city and other towns earlier that day to conserve electricity, the media reports said.
The situation is so bad that several government-run hospitals are reported have run out of essential life-saving medicines and have stopped conducting surgeries.
Rajapaksa has been sayng the economic downturn was largely due to the pandemic, and is not his making.
Inflation surged to 17.5% in February, and it is expected to rise even further, the country’s Central Bank had said earlier.