SRI LANKA IDENTIFIES OUTFIT BEHIND BLASTS
DECLARES EMERGENCY
COLOMBO: A local outfit identified as the National Tawheed Jamath is suspected of plotting the deadly Easter blasts that killed 290 people and wounded 500 others in the worst terror attack in the country’s history, a top Sri Lankan minister said on Monday.
An explosion went off on Monday in a van near a church in Colombo when a squad of Special Task Force (STF) and air force were trying to diffuse the bomb, Reuters reported.
“The van exploded when the bomb defusing unit of the STF (Special Task Force) and air force tried to defuse the bomb,” the witness said.
Health Minister and the government spokesman, Rajitha Senaratne, also said that all suicide bombers involved in the blasts are believed to be Sri Lankan nationals.
Speaking at a press conference here, the minister said that the Chief of National Intelligence had warned the Inspector General of Police (IGP) regarding the probable attacks before April 11.
“On April 4, international intelligence agencies had warned of these attacks. The IGP was informed on April 9,” Senaratne said.
He said that the local outfit identified as the National Tawheed Jamath - a radical Muslim group - is suspected of plotting the deadly explosions.
“There may be international
links to them,” he added. Senaratne sought resignation of police chief Pujith Jayasundera given the significant security lapse. Rauff Hakeem, a government minister and the
leader of the leading Muslim party - Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, said that it was lamentable that no preventive action had done taken despite the inputs.
“They have known this..., the names have been given, identified, but (they) took no action,” he added.
Two Sri Lankan Muslim groups - the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama and the National Shoora Council - have condemned the blasts and offered condolences to the Christian community.
They have urged that all culprits be brought to book.
Seven suicide bombers were involved in eight blasts that targeted St Anthony’s Church in Colombo, St Sebastian’s Church
in Negombo and Zeon Church in Batticaloa when the Easter Sunday mass was in progress. The explosions also struck three five-star hotels in Colombo - the Shangri-la, the Cinnamon Grand and the Kingsbury.
No group has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attacks, but police have so far arrested 24 people. As many as 87 bomb detonators were found on Monday at a bus station in Colombo, police said.
The bomb detonators were found at the Central Colombo bus station in Pettah area.
The police initially found 12 bomb detonators scattered on the ground. A further search revealed 75 more, a police statement said.
Meanwhile, the government said it would declare a national emergency from midnight on Monday following the serial blasts.
“The government has decided to gazette the clauses related to prevention of terrorism to emergency regulation and gazette it by midnight,” the Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s media unit said in a statement.
The government also ordered a new night-time curfew as tensions remained high. The government information department said the curfew would run from 8:00 pm on Monday (local time) until 4:00 am on Tuesday.
The Indian Coast Guard has been placed on high alert along the maritime border to prevent any attempt by those behind the Sri Lanka blasts to enter India, central sources said Monday.
Meanwhile, four JD(S) workers from Karnataka, who were on a visit to Sri Lanka, have been killed in the multiple blasts in the island nation, according to Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy.
COLOMBO: As Shantha Prasad carried children wounded in Sri Lanka’s deadly attacks into a Colombo hospital, memories of the country’s deadly civil war flooded back.
“I carried about eight wounded children yesterday,” he told AFP on Monday, a day after a string of blasts hit hotels and churches, killing nearly 300 people.
“There were two girls aged six and eight, the same age as my daughters,” said Prasad, who helps carry stretchers into the hospital’s triage area and wards.
“Their clothes were torn and drenched in blood. It is unbearable to see this kind of violence again.” For many Sri Lankans, Sunday’s attacks against churches and high-end hotels brought back painful memories of a conflict that lasted three decades and killed as many as 100,000 people.
During those years, bomb attacks were a regular occurrence, and left many Sri Lankans on edge in the streets and on public transport.
In the capital, street sweeper Malathi Wickrama said Monday he was now nervous doing his job.
“Now we are afraid to even touch black plastic bags with garbage,” he said.
“The string of blasts yesterday brings back memories of the time when we were afraid to go in buses or trains because of parcel bombs.”
With the lifting of a nationwide curfew early Monday
morning, people began to emerge into Colombo’s streets, where security was heavy.
Schools and the stock exchange are closed, but some shops opened their doors and public transport was functioning.
Imtiaz Ali, a tuk-tuk driver, was looking for customers in the capital, but said his family was in mourning over the death of his nephew in the blast that hit the Cinnamon Grand hotel.
“The boy was just 23. He was a salesman at Cinnamon Grand hotel and he was to be married next week,” Ali told AFP.
“We had made all the plans to hold the wedding at home, but today it’s a funeral house.” When Ali stopped at a petrol station to get a back-up container of fuel, the attendant said police had banned the sale of petrol and diesel in cans and bottles for fear they could be used to improvise bombs.
Elsewhere in the city, some residents were making their way into work, determined to maintain a semblance of normality despite the tragedy.
“We are resilient people,” said Nuwan Samarweera, a 50-year-old office worker.
“We have seen so much violence during the civil war. For the outside world it may be big, but for us life goes on,” he added.