Over 30 people were injured during the rally as police baton-charged and teargassed the demonstration by the UNP to highlight Chandrika's ``broken promises''. Several journalists and MPs were among those injured and admitted to hospital.

While the UNP accused policemen, and members of the President's security, known as PSD, of assaulting the protesters and journalists covering the event, the government said the demonstration was ``unauthorised'' and that the police were provoked into using teargas to break it up. At a press conference today, opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe accused President Chandrika Kumaratunga of ``marching towards a dictatorship'' because of her inability to deliver on her promises.

Meanwhile, a statement from the residentialsecretariat said the UNP was ``irresponsible'' to highlight the government's unkept promises while it was in fact the UNP's refusal to give parliamentary support that has prevented the government from delivering those promises. Wickremesinghe said the PSD, ``under the protection of the police and army, set upon and assaulted participants (in the demonstration), members of the media and the general public''.

He said he was surprised to note the army and the anti-terrorist Rapid Deployment Force out in strength during the demonstration. Displaying teargas shells, Wickremesinghe claimed those had been fired into two offices of the UNP, away from the site of the demonstration. Teargas had also been fired into the office of a Sinhala language newspaper and the UNP-controlled Town Hall, he said.

In its defence, the government claimed that it was the demonstrators that had attacked journalists of the state-owned media, bystanders and policemen on duty, leaving it no option but to break it up by usingteargas.

The statement from the Presidential secretariat said the demonstrators who were marching towards the President's official home Temple Trees, were ``abusing the President and security officials in filth''. ``Their main slogan was to throw out the President from her residence,'' it said.

Information Minister Mangala Samaraweera condemned the attack on journalists by ``UNP thugs masquerading as agitators''.

But Free Media Movement, an organisation aiming to safeguard the rights of journalists condemned the ``premeditated action on journalists'' by persons ``identified to be from the PSD''.

``This is the worst attack on the media,'' FMM convenor Waruna Karunatilleke said in a statement.