By Sandun A Jayasekera

While expressing his personal as well as the government’s dismay and condemnation on the attack on the former vice chancellor of the Peradeniya University Prof. Athula Senaratne and his son by a gang of marauding undergrads, Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardana said the government has decided to arrest the fast spreading culture of drug and violence in Universities.

Addressing the media at the Information Department, Minister Gunawardana government spokesman and Mass Media, Transport and Highways Minister said the government was not ready to slip the university education back to the reign of terror prevalent during 1989 – 90 period that brutally killed University scholars like Prof. Stanley Wijesundara, the late VC of the Colombo University and many other academics, film and tele-drama artistes, journalists, students, civilians and armed forces and police personnel in addition destroying state assets worth billions of rupees.

“The Universities have become ‘un-cleared areas existed during the conflict’. Use of drugs, inhuman ragging, violence, sexual harassment on female students and many other anti-social and illegal activities are widespread in the national University system. The incidents with disastrous  consequences have devastated the parents, University teachers, the University administration, the public and the government. Only tin despots like Hitler, Pol Pot or Dinh Diem can be produced from our Universities if we continue to let this tragic situation to continue in our University system any further. This cannot be tolerated and needs drastic measures to plug it sooner than later,” Minister Gunawardana who is also a former Education Minister stressed.

The government will setup a Presidential Task Force (PTF) to look into the violence, drug use, ragging, lawlessness and other anti-social and unlawful acts among university students and propose recommendations to put an end to the disastrous situation.