Sri Lanka’s acting President, Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday declared a state of emergency and imposed curfew to control a fresh wave of protests in Colombo.

Wickremesinghe, in a recorded message broadcast on television said that the directive was given following intelligence reports that protesters were storming parliament, the prime minister’s office and the residences of service commanders.

Wickremesinghe was sworn in as the acting president after Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country to Maldives earlier in the day after protests.

Wickremesinghe had been serving as prime minister.

His statement came as more than 3,000 people, most of them university students, continued protesting near the prime minister’s office with some of them storming the building.

However, a large number of troops had been deployed around the area and were trying to drive the protesters away by using tear gas.