IGP orders probe on threat to pastor

The Inspector General of Police (IGP) N.K. Illangakoon has ordered an investigation where a Christian pastor and his family were?threatened by a mob,?including?several monks, in Weeraketiya yesterday.
Police spokesman SP Budhika Siriwardena said that nearly 300 people had reportedly demonstrated outside the house of the pastor and threatened him and is family.
“The IGP has instructed the police to thoroughly investigate the incident,” the police spokesman said.
A mob including several monks surrounded the house of a Christian pastor in Weeraketiya yesterday and staged a demonstration, sources from the area said.
The mob had set fire to tyres placed around the house and hurled verbal abuse towards those inside. It was not clear if the pastor was in the house at the time.
In December last year a large mob including many Buddhist monks stormed the Jeevalokaya Sabhawa premises at Weeraketiya where a Christian Congregation was gathered together for worship.
The National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka said at the time that the mob had caused serious damage to furniture and equipment within the building as well as to vehicles belonging to church members which were parked outside. The pastor was also injured.
Asked about the incident in Nawala on Friday where a?group?of persons led by monks stormed a house and?verbally?abused the family, the police spokesman said he was not aware of the incident.
The monks attached to the ?Sinhala Ravaya? organization stormed the house at Walauwatha in Nawala and accused the family of being involved in unethical?conversions..
The mob went inside the rooms in the house to ?investigate? the allegations raised against the family.
Some people in the mob assaulted the wife of the man in the house in front of their young child, which was captured on video by a private television camera crew.?(Colombo Gazette)