Gotabaya Rajapaksa Sri Lanka: Protesters claim to recover millions of rupees from prez Gotabaya Rajapaksa's house
Colombo: The protesters, who stormed inside Sri Lanka president Gotabaya Rajapaksa's official residence on Saturday, have claimed to recover millions of rupees hidden inside the mansion, according to a media report.
A video circulating on social media shows protesters counting the currency notes that were recovered from the presidential residence.
🇱🇰 Protesters in Sri Lanka’s Colombo have discovered over 17.8 million rupees ($49,100) in cash in the residence of the country’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and handed the money over to the police, GotaGoGama protest movement said on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/MRb4G3i5Nq
— Janey (@_Janey_J) July 10, 2022
Daily Mirror newspaper reported that the money was said to have been handed over to the security units.
Meanwhile, the president's whereabouts are still unknown after he, reportedly, fled as protesters took over his official residence.
Since then, the report said, his only communication has been with Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, informing him of his decision to step down as the President of Sri Lanka on Wednesday.
President Gotabaya's elder brother and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa quit in May in the face of massive anti-government protests.
The island nation with a population of 22 million people is under the grip of a spiralling economic crisis, the worst in seven decades, brought on by an acute shortage of foreign exchange that has rendered it incapable of paying for essential imports of fuel, and other essentials.
