Curfew in Sri Lanka town after anti-Muslim attacks
Sri Lankan troops in a northern town fired shots into the air and police imposed a curfew on Sunday after mobs attacked a mosque, in renewed tensions in the wake of the Easter terror attacks.
Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said that the mobs in Chilaw, 80 kilometres north of the capital Colombo, also attacked Muslim-owned businesses. The violence erupted in Chilaw, a Catholic-majority town, after a resident misunderstood a Facebook post as a threat against Christians. Gunasekera said the Muslim man who posted the comment has been arrested. He said the curfew would be lifted at dawn on Monday.
Muslims make up around 10% of Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka’s 21 million population and Christians about 7.6%.
CLERIC WHO AIRED EXTREMIST VIEWS HELD
Sri Lankan authorities have arrested a Saudi-educated scholar for what they claim are links with Zahran Hashim, the suspected ringleader of the Easter Sunday bombings, throwing a spotlight on the rising influence of Salafi-Wahhabi Islam on the island’s Muslims.
Mohamed Aliyar, 60, is the founder of the Centre for Islamic Guidance, which boasts a mosque, a religious school and a library in Zahran’s hometown of Kattankudy, a Muslim-dominated city on Sri Lanka’s eastern shores. “Information has been revealed that the suspect arrested had a close relationship with ... Zahran and had been operating financial transactions,” said a police statement late on Friday.
The statement said Aliyar was “involved” with training in the southern town of Hambantota for the group of suicide bombers who attacked hotels and churches on Easter.
FIRST REGULAR SUNDAY MASS SINCE ATTACKS
Thousands of Catholics attended mass in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo on Sunday amid tight security to prevent a repeat of Easter bomb attacks that killed 258 people. Soldiers armed with automatic assault rifles guarded St Theresa’s church at Colombo’s Thimbirigasyaya residential quarter, while churchgoers were searched for explosives.