Indian national heading Visa Center assaulted near Colombo.

  Colombo, July 20: Vivek Varma, an Indian national, working as the Director of the Indian Visa Center (IVS), a private organization, was assaulted by unknown persons near Colombo on Tuesday night. A complaint has been lodged with the Sri Lankan authorities. The Indian High Commission tweeted about it as follows: “Officials of @IndiainSL met in the morning Mr Vivek Varma, an Indian national and Director of Indian Visa Center, who sustained grievous injuries in an unprovoked assault last night near #Colombo. The matter was brought to the attention of authorities in #SriLanka.” Speaking to this correspondent, an Indian official said that Varma was neither an Indian High Commission official nor a Government of India official but an Indian national working for the private Indian Visa Center to which visa work had been out-sourced. The incident triggered speculation about why the Indian was assaulted. Some said that it followed the allegation that India had tried to help former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country unable to withstand the people's struggle against the Rajapaksa clan. Indian officials however said that the reasons for the attack on Varma would emerge only from the investigations being conducted. India had also officially denied that India had anything to do with the flight of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He had gone by a Lankan Air Force plane to the Maldives and then to Singapore by Saudia