page_title: S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike
section_title: Assassination
hierarchical_section_title: S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike / Assassination
caption_attribution_description: English: S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike with Sirimavo Bandaranaike &amp; E. L. Senanayake.
context_page_description: Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike, frequently referred to as S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, was the fourth Prime Minister of Ceylon and founder of the Left wing and Sinhalese nationalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party. SWRD Bandaranaike became the prime minister of Ceylon in 1956 and carried out left wing reforms such as nationalizing bus services and introducing legislation to prohibit caste based discrimination. Bandaranaike is also remembered for removing British naval and air bases in Sri Lanka and establishing diplomatic missions with a number of communist states.
  Bandaranaike served as the prime minister until he was assassinated by a Buddhist monk named Ven Talduwe Somarama in 1959 allegedly over the signing of the Bandaranaike–Chelvanayakam Pact.
context_section_description: Bandaranaike died four years into his term, aged 60 on 26 September 1959, at the Merchant's Ward of the Colombo General Hospital due to wounds sustained after being shot by Talduwe Somarama, a Buddhist monk.
  On 25 September, Somarama had visited Bandaranaike at his private residence, Tintagel, in Rosmead Place, Colombo. Since Somarama appeared to be a member of the Buddhist clergy, he was not searched for weapons and given free access to the prime minister as he began his routine meetings with the public. The monk then fired a revolver at Bandaranaike as the latter stood to greet him; he was rushed to hospital but died the following day despite six hours of surgery by Ceylon's most skilled surgeons. A Supreme court trial found Somarama, Mapitigama Buddharakkitha, H.P. Jayewardena guilty and pronounced on all three of them the death sentence (death by hanging). Although Bandaranaike's administration had suspended capital punishment, Talduwe Somarama was hanged on 6 July 1962. It was claimed by the court that the reason for the murder of the Bandaranaike, was due to Bandaranaike's refusal to entertain Buddharakitha Thero's requests following his support for Buddharakitha in the election.
  After Bandaranaike's death, Wijeyananda Dahanayake, minister of education and the acting leader of the house, was appointed caretaker prime minister by the Governor General and was confirmed by Parliament. C. P. de Silva, the minister of lands, land development and agriculture, and the leader of the house had taken ill at a cabinet meeting in August 25, 1959 and was flown to the United Kingdom for treatment, making Dahanayake the acting leader of the house and had been put up by Bandaranaike as acting prime minister, during his planned visit to the UN. 
  However, he fell out of favor with the members of the government, resulting in the removal of all ministers of the Bandaranaike's cabinet in less than a year. Eventually, the leadership of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party fell to Bandaranaike's widow Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike who held the SLFP to an election victory in July 1960 becoming the world's first female Prime Minister and was soon appointed a Senator.
caption: Bandaranaike with Srimavo & E. L. Senanayake on 23rd September 1959 in Kandy,Two days before his assassination.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "1200", "Image YResolution": "1200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2019:07:30 22:31:14", "Image Padding": "[]", "Image ExifOffset": "2236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4446", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7576", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5583", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "4424", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}