Buddhists attack mosques, Muslim property in Sri Lanka, prompting temporary curfew

PressTV | March 6, 2018

Curfew imposed in Sri Lanka's Kandy district. (file photo)

A curfew had to be temporarily imposed in central Sri Lanka after Buddhist mobs attacked a mosque and burned shops and houses belonging to Muslims.

The police curfew, which was imposed in the Kandy district on Monday, was lifted early on Tuesday, according to police spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekara.

The spokesman said that security had, however, been tightened in the Teldeniya and Digana areas even as the situation had been brought under control.

The mob violence started on Monday after a man from the majority ethnic Sinhalese population, who allegedly had been injured by Muslims in an accident, died in hospital.

Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara confirmed the imposition of the curfew but declined to provide details on injuries and property damage.

The government said in a statement that police were put on alert to prevent the violence from spreading and asked people to “act with responsibility and remain calm.”

At least 11 shops and homes were set on fire, said Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon, the chief executive of the Sri Lanka-based Center for Human Rights and Research group.

The human rights advocate condemned the “unfathomable police inefficiency” that he said had led to the violence.

Sri Lanka, also called Ceylon, is an island in the Indian Ocean with an estimated population of 20 million people. About 75 percent of Sri Lanka’s population is Sinhalese, who are mostly Buddhists, while about nine percent is Muslim. The rest of the population are either Hindus or Christians.

The largely cordial relationship between the diverse faiths in Sri Lanka has soured in recent years with Buddhist monks and hard-line Sinhala groups cracking down on others, accusing them of making efforts to spread their influence. (PressTV)