Tamil Protesters In Sri Lanka Pull Out Shampoo To Wash Hair As Police Fire Water Cannons

Tamilians in Sri Lanka gathered to protest against the scheduled visit of President Ranil Wickremesinghe near Jaffna University on Sunday. To shoo away the protesters, the Sri Lankan police fired water cannons at them. However, in a gesture of defiance, the protesters pulled out the shampoo and started using the sprayed water to wash their hair.

The pictures of the protest were shared on Twitter by Dr Thusiyan Nandakumar. The caption of the video reads, "When Sri Lankan police fired water cannons on a protest in Jaffna today... The Tamils pulled out shampoo."

Another video shared by Ms Nandakumar, shows protestors throwing water mixed with cow dung at the police in Nallur. According to Tamil Guardian, the Sri Lankan police set up barricades at the Nallur Arasati Road-Vaiman Road intersection to disperse the protesters who were rallying. The police decided to fire water cannons on the protesters after they tried to push past the barricades.

Check out the tweet here:

According to an AFP report, bankrupt Sri Lanka recently announced sharp government spending cuts and warned it had barely enough revenue to pay public salaries and pensions despite huge tax hikes.

The island nation has defaulted on its $46 billion public debt and is negotiating an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout after an unprecedented economic crisis last year brought widespread misery. 

President Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered a five per cent reduction in state spending this week and his administration warned Tuesday that welfare payments for 1.8 million families below the poverty line could be delayed this month.

"The president informed the cabinet yesterday that the economic crisis this year is going to be worse than what we expected," government spokesman Bandula Gunawardana told reporters.