The Indian Express reported that a group of Malaysian Tamils had assaulted Ibrahim Sahib Ansar at a restricted area of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
The CCTV footage of the incident, accessed by The Indian Express, showed the group of men cornering Ansar and questioning him before beating him down to the floor.
An official statement issued by Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry said the High Commissioner of Malaysia had expressed the deepest regret regarding the incident and informed that the Malaysian law enforcement authorities had already arrested five suspects involved in the incident.
A source in Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry told the newspaper the attackers had come in search of former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday to attend a conference of Asian political parties organised by the Malaysian government at the Putra World Trade Centre.
“The assaulters came and asked Ansar about the whereabouts of ‘war criminal Rajapaksa.’ When he replied that they should go and find out from security officers, they beat him and left him bleeding,” the foreign ministry official was quoted as saying.
On Monday, the Sri Lankan Government condemned the incident and lodged a strong protest with the Malaysian high commissioner in Colombo for failing to provide him adequate security.
On September 1, about 50 people of Indian ethnicity had also gathered outside the PWTC to protest against the visit by Rajapaksa, raising slogans and calling him a “war criminal”.
The protesters cited the killing of thousands of Tamils during the civil war in Sri Lanka that ended in 2009.
According to the report, the Office of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, is awaiting information on the assailants.