According to witnesses and officials, a prominent Sri Lankan trade union leader who was in the forefront of the demonstrations that forced Gotabaya Rajapaksa from the presidency was detained on Wednesday.
The Sri Lanka Teachers' Union secretary, Joseph Stalin, is the senior-most activist to be detained as a result of the crackdown on protestors that led Rajapaksa to flee last month.
At Stalin's union headquarters in Colombo, as he was being taken into custody, police informed reporters: “He is being arrested for holding a demonstration in May in violation of a court order.”
During the months-long protests, which reached their pinnacle on July 9 with the invasion of Rajapaksa's palace, scores of others have already been placed under arrest by police on suspicion of causing damage to public property.
Rajapaksa was forced to flee the country and eventually resign after tens of thousands of angry citizens protesting the island nation's economic crisis stormed his palace and his seafront office.
Ranil Wickremesinghe, Rajapaksa's successor, has distinguished between "protesters" and "rioters," and he has threatened to take harsh measures against "any disturbance maker."
Another demonstrator who had broken into the leader's liquor cabinet, gulped a beer, and fled with a presidential mug was also detained by police.
According to a police official who spoke to AFP under the condition of anonymity, the 43-year-old man was arrested after posting a picture of himself on Facebook taken at Colombo's Presidential Palace.
The man was arrested earlier this week for alleged unlawful entry into a state building and retaining stolen property.
“He will be brought to Colombo to stand trial,” the official said.
The palace was occupied for about 10 days before it was handed back to the authorities.
Last week, police arrested another trade union activist from the Colombo port for removing two official flags from the palace and using them as a bedsheet and a sarong.
He was identified from the videos he had shared on social media.
Sri Lanka’s 22 million people have endured months of lengthy blackouts, record inflation and shortages of food, fuel and petrol.
Rajapaksa had been blamed by protesters for mismanaging the nation’s finances and public anger had simmered for months before the mass demonstrations that forced his ouster.
Soon after protesters overran the Presidential Palace, there were social media posts of them frolicking in the presidential pool and bouncing on four-poster beds inside the sprawling compound.
But protesters also turned over to authorities around 17.5 million rupees ($46,000) in crisp banknotes that had been found in one of the presidential palace’s rooms.
The military late last month demolished a protest camp outside the president’s office that had campaigned for Rajapaksa’s ouster — a move that drew international condemnation accusing troops of using excessive force on unarmed demonstrators.