Sri Lankan President Premadasa Assassinated at Rally : Asia: Suicide bomber on a bicycle also kills 14 others with huge blast.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —  President Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated Saturday by a suicide bomber on a bicycle at a May Day rally, bringing a violent end to the career of a man who sought peace for Sri Lanka.

At least 14 other people, including the police commissioner, were killed in the huge explosion in the center of Colombo, police said.

Prime Minister Dingiri Wijetunge was appointed acting president, and a curfew was imposed across this island nation off the southern tip of India.

Police said the bomb exploded seconds after Premadasa’s bodyguards stopped a man on a bicycle. A man’s body found at the scene had wires attached to his clothing.

The military said the suspected bomber was believed to be a teen-ager, possibly as young as 14.

“It was like a battlefield. We all ran in all directions,” said Evans Cooray, Premadasa’s press secretary, who narrowly escaped the blast.

The bombing and televised scenes of its gruesome aftermath stunned the nation, where thousands have died in an unending cycle of violence since 1983.

Police said they suspect Tamil rebels are responsible. But the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the main guerrilla group fighting Colombo’s rule, denied involvement.

People in several areas in the south of the island set off fireworks in jubilation after hearing the news of Premadasa’s assassination. Left-wing Sinhalese rebels in the south oppose the government.

A Tamil spokesman said the assassination may have been in revenge for the death last month of Lalith Athulathmudali, a former minister and leader of the opposition party.

He was shot by a gunman April 23, and his party blamed Premadasa for the killing. The president denied the charge.

An opposition party statement issued by Gamini Dissanayake, another former minister, said: “This is a culmination of a process of violence which has accumulated during the last four years. The fact that very valuable men were victims of that violence will perhaps be the epitaph of this regime.”

Premadasa, 68, came to power in early 1989 with the promise to restore peace to the nation of 16 million people, the first commoner to hold the office since the former Ceylon became independent from Britain in 1948.

He was born in a poverty-stricken area of Colombo not far from where he died. He was educated by Buddhist monks and went to the island’s premier Roman Catholic school, St. Joseph’s College.

He entered politics in 1950 and rose through the system to become prime minister in 1978, an office he held until winning the presidency. He planned to run for reelection next year.

Press secretary Cooray told reporters the president was standing in the road directing the rally moments before the bombing.

Troops and police were deployed across the city to prevent any attacks by majority Sinhalese on members of the Tamil minority. Air force helicopters flew over the capital, but there were no immediate reports of unrest.