Indo-Lankan lesbian couple likely to land in jail for their "abnormal love"
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Colombo: Sri Lanka's LGBTQ+ community held a 'pride march' in Colombo this week after a lesbian couple was arrested for having an "abnormal relationship".
One of the country's marginalised communities came out in droves in support of the pair of Indian and Sri Lankan women in the eastern city of Akkaraipattue.
The couple had met on social media two years ago and the 24-year-old from Tamil Nadu had invited the Sri Lanka woman to India.
The Sri Lankan woman couldn't make it as her application for a passport is pending in the backlog of overworking Immigration Department after thousands have applied for passports to flee the troubled nation.
On Monday, the Indian woman arrived in Sri Lanka on tourist visa and was put up overnight at her partner's home in Akkaraipattu, 220 km from Colombo.
The father of a 33-year-old local woman, who is married with one child, objected to the couple's relationship and complained to the local police station in Akkaraipattu.
The police had arrested the two women and the Sri Lankan woman told the police that she wanted to go to India with her friend. The couple threatened to commit suicide if they were not allowed to leave the country.
The police had produced them before Akkaraipattu Magistrate who had ordered the two women be examined by a psychiatrist and asked for a report of psychiatric evaluation.
They had been admitted to near Kalmunai hospital and the couple were ordered to be produced before the court on Monday with examination reports.
According to Sri Lanka's laws dating back to colonial British Ceylon homosexuality is illegal and homosexual acts are punishable by a jail term of up to ten years.
Rights groups keep complaining the misuse of the archaic law with police, government workers and others harassing, intimidating, extorting money and even committing physical and sexual assault on members of the LGBTQ community.
They had been demanding the immediate change of laws.
IANS with edits