A Sri Lankan police officer stands guard while colleagues inspect a vehicle at a checkpoint in Colombo yesterday. Sri Lanka’s president has announced plans to have the military join a crackdown targeting criminal gangs in the capital as police re-introduced war-time road blocks following a surge in gang-related shootings. President Maithripala Sirisena told a public
meeting in Colombo that he ordered security forces to conduct joint operations with the police to dismantle crime networks responsible for a spate of shootings in Colombo and its suburbs.