MINUWANGODA: Sri Lanka announced on Tuesday a curfew for a second straight night after a man was killed by sword-wielding rioters in an escalating backlash following the Easter terror attacks.
Violence broke out late on Monday, three weeks after extremist bombings killed 258 people, with rampaging mobs carrying out arson attacks and 2,000 people vandalising a mosque, witnesses said.
Police announced another nationwide curfew for a second night to try and stop the violence, beginning at 9:00 pm.
The curfew had been in place all day in North-Western Province (NWP), where police said a 45-year-old man was slaughtered in his carpentry shop late on Monday by a crowd carrying swords.
Fauzul Ameen was buried on Tuesday at a cemetery in Nattandiya under tight security. Heavily armed troops and police backed by armoured personnel carriers guarded a service attended by around 100 people.
Police said on Tuesday that 13 people had been arrested including Amith Weerasinghe, a man from Sri Lanka’s majority Buddhist Sinhalese community on bail for his role in similar riots in March last year.
Elsewhere in NWP, north of Colombo, attackers outnumbering police and security forces set fire to Muslim-owned shops, vandalised homes and smashed windows, furniture and fittings inside several mosques.
In the adjoining Gampaha district, men on motorbikes led arson attacks in the town of Minuwangoda, 45 kilometres north of Colombo, local residents said.
“They were from out of town,” an owner of an electronic goods store said by telephone.
“After they started smashing shops and throwing petrol bombs, the locals joined in.”
He said police and security forces appeared to be overwhelmed and that by the time troops fired in the air to disperse the mobs it was too late.
A pasta factory owned by a Muslim businessman burned to the ground after unidentified attackers threw burning tyres inside.
“Police and security forces also did not do anything to put out the fire,” the owner of Diamond Pasta, Ashraf Jifthy, said by telephone. — AFP
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