Six police officers arrested over alleged assault of Catholic priest

Six police officers have been arrested over the alleged assault of a 33-year-old Catholic priest.

Fr Milan Priyadarshana was hospitalised on Saturday evening after alleging that he had been assaulted by a group of police officers in Gampaha, Sri Lanka.

According to the priest, he was riding a motorcycle to attend a service when he was chased by a police motorcycle unit. The officers involved include three police sergeants and three police constables. While in hospital, the priest was visited by the National Catholic Communications Director, Rev. Jude Krishantha Fernando, and by Samagi Jana Balawegaya, the local Member of Parliament.

Although Sri Lanka has not been listed on Open Doors’ World Watch List 2026 for violence against Christians, it remains a country where religion-based violence against the Church is a lived reality for many. In 2019, Easter Day bombings saw three churches targeted in a series of coordinated ISIS attacks. The bombings, which also targeted three luxury hotels and a housing complex, killed more than 330 people and injured over 500.

Sri Lanka is predominantly Buddhist, with Buddhists comprising around 70 per cent of the population, while Christians account for approximately 8 per cent. Buddhist nationalist groups, often led by extremist Buddhist monks, have carried out incidents of violence and harassment directed at Christian minorities. One such group, Bodu Bala Sena, translated from Sinhala as “Buddhist Power Army”, is an extremist Buddhist movement that seeks to keep Sri Lanka free from what it describes as “foreign ideologies”.

The motivation for the alleged attack is not yet clear, though it may be linked to wider societal intolerance towards Christianity. In response to the incident, the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka plans to file a Fundamental Rights petition. This is a constitutional legal action that allows a complaint to be made directly to the Supreme Court alleging that fundamental rights have been violated by the police. The Court will first decide whether to grant the case a full hearing and, if so, may declare a violation, award compensation, and issue guidelines to authorities on how to prevent similar incidents in future.

In response to the incident, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Colombo, Fr Cyril Gamini Fernando, told the press: “We are planning to file a Fundamental Rights petition on behalf of Fr Milan Priyadarshana, who was assaulted by police officers in Negombo. They came on motorcycles, surrounded the priest, and assaulted him.”

The six police officers remain on remand until 29 January.