Colombo – Sri Lanka gave emergency powers on Tuesday to its military and police to detain people without warrants, after hundreds of protesters defied a nationwide curfew in Sri Lanka on Tuesday, a day after violent clashes saw the resignation of the country’s prime minister.

The government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the younger brother of the prime minister, outlined broad powers for the military and police.

The military can now detain people for up to 24 hours before handing them to police. Any private property can be searched by force, including private vehicles, the government said in a gazette notification on Tuesday.

"Any person arrested by a police officer shall be taken to the nearest police station," it said, fixing a 24-hour deadline for the armed forces to do the same.

Protesters swarmed the entrance to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office in the capital, Colombo, for the 32nd day to demand that he follow in his brother’s footsteps and quit.

The site outside Rajapaksa’s office has seen crowds of thousands for weeks but had dropped to hundreds on Tuesday due to a strict curfew, following clashes yesterday that left four dead.

The South Asian island nation has been simmering for more than a month, as protests have spread from the capital to the countryside. It has drawn people from across ethnicities, religions and classes and has even seen a marked revolt from some Rajapaksa supporters, many of whom have spent weeks calling for the two brothers to quit.

Imports of everything from milk to fuel have plunged, spawning dire food shortages and rolling power cuts. People have been forced to stand in lines for hours to buy essentials. Doctors have warned of crippling shortages of life-saving drugs in hospitals, and the government has suspended payments on $7 billion in foreign debt due this year alone.
-Reuters/Ap