Sri Lanka: Protesters seek resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa amid ongoing economic crisis

Amidst the ongoing economic crisis in Sri Lanka, a string of protests marked the island nation as the citizens demanded the immediate resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa for his inability to curb the crisis.

Sri Lankan citizens staged a protest outside the President's house which was aggravated further when Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared all the protesters as extremists, arresting many of them, reported NUS, a flagship university.

Students, farmers, and judiciary members all joined the protest against Rajapaksa and his family and voiced the slogan of "No more Rajapaksas". Upon the spread of the protest on social media, the regime took down the internet, infuriating the protesters even more for suppressing their democratic rights, resulting in the use of virtual private networks to access the same.

Fearing the people's uprising, some of the family members of Rajapaksa and their financiers have even fled the country. Citizens demand Rajapaksa to step down as the President, calling for an election process to be conducted, not complying to which will lead to complete anarchy.

The flagship university NUS reported the resignation of Cabinet Ministers. But the demand from the protestors for a new leadership made the newly elected Finance Minister Ali Sabry to resign as well.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Sri Lanka has befallen into a dire economic crisis due to debt troubles, liquidity problems, and minimum foreign reserves leading to long power outages, and scarcity of fuel impacting manufacturing industries and the middle class.

( With inputs from ANI )