Welikada and Mahara detainees end their fast

A group of inmates serving sentences to death in Welikada and Mahara prisons have ended their hunger strike yesterday (30).

They had been on a five-day hunger strike demanding that the death penalty be commuted to life imprisonment. About 150 inmates of the Welikada Prison who were sentenced to death joined the strike, with about 25 of them climbing onto the roof of the chapel ward. At Mahara Prison too, 70 death row inmates went on a hunger strike.

Prison spokesman, Commissioner of Prisons (Administration and Rehabilitation) Chandana Ekanayake said that the inmates who joined the protest at both prisons had lunch yesterday (30).