Lankan editor,wife wounded in knife attack

Assailants on motorbikes attacked and wounded a Sri Lankan newspaper editor and his wife as they drove to work on Friday morning...

Assailants on motorbikes attacked and wounded a Sri Lankan newspaper editor and his wife as they drove to work on Friday morning,authorities said,the latest in a string of assault on journalists in Sri Lanka.

The Government,which has been accused of turning a blind eye to the violence or even orchestrating it,announced it would create a special police team to find out who is behind the attacks,Media Minister Anura Yapa said.

We totally condemn this type of attack,and we will do everything possible to find the culprits, he said.

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In the latest attack,four people on motorbikes blocked Upali Tennakoons car near his home outside Colombo as he and his wife were heading to work at the independent Rivira weekly newspaper,police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekera said. The assailants repeatedly stabbed the couple,he said.

Dr Prasad Ariyawansa,a doctor at Colombo National Hospital,said Tennakoon was treated for lacerations to his hands and forehead and his wife had some lacerations as well.

The assault came two weeks after assailants on motorcycles gunned down Lasantha Wickrematunge,the editor of a paper that is harshly critical of the Government. The Government has been criticised for arresting journalists critical of its policies and its war on ethnic Tamil rebels.

On Friday,Human Rights Watch called on the Government to drop charges against J S Tissainayagam,an ethnic Tamil journalist who was arrested in March and indicted five months later under an anti-terrorism law for two articles he wrote about issues confronting Sri Lankas minority Tamils.