The recent sealing of cool rooms at the famed Avenra Garden Hotel in Negombo by PHIs, has led to upsets in political circles, ‘Sri Lanka Mirror’ learns.

This is due to doubts whether a prominent politician in the Negombo area had been behind the incident.

This politician, as well as the Avenra Garden owner – Danesh de Silva, have been close associates of late politician – Jeyaraj Fernandopulle.

However, Mr. de Silva is now said to be a close associate of the Rajapaksa family.

During the ‘Aragalaya’ protests last year, the Avenra Garden Hotel was even set on fire by protestors, claiming that Yoshitha Rajapaksa’s money had been pumped into de Silva’s businesses.

The rise of de Silva, from a humble PT teacher at a school to a hotelier owning multiple properties, has also been questioned.

Attempted sabotage of Hiru Christmas party?

Also, separate rumours cite that the aforementioned raid by the PHIs was done as an attempt to sabotage the ‘Senehase Naththala’ christmas programme annually done at the hotel by the ‘Hiru’ TV channel.

However, the programme is currently being held at the hotel with no setbacks.

Legal redress

The Avenra Garden Hotel has also issued a public statement with regard to the raid.

It states that the PHI’s had falsely stated that a certain frozen food was stored incorrectly in the hotel cool rooms and sought a bribe from the hotel management to look the other way.

The statement further notes that the hotel will be seeking legal action and a police complaint has already been lodged in this regard.