Sri Lanka PM Ranil says Buddhist extremists sabotaging peace; mosque burnt
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told Sri Lankan Parliament on Tuesday that elders from the Buddhist and Muslim communities had been engaged in a dialogue to prevent further violence in the Central Sri Lankan district of Kandy. According to him, certain extremist elements from outside the area had been inciting communal sentiments in what he termed as ''organised acts of sabotage''. The Buddhist community held a protest outside a police station in Kandy against two dozen arrests made in the aftermath of the riots. The government on Tuesday imposed a 10-day emergency to quell the spread of communal riots. Several houses and shops belonging to the Muslim community had been burnt on Monday while the body of a young man had been found inside a burnt house on Tuesday. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa rejected suggestions that the clashes could be a result of some political conspiracy and rested the blame for the situation entirely on the ruling coalition's 'inaction'. The Sri Lankan House leader Lakshman Kiriella told Parliament that state intelligence services had failed in Digana and Teldeniya, in face of the communal clashes. He said a resolution must be drafted to apologise to the Muslim community on behalf of the Buddhists, as reported by the Sri Lankan news website Daily Mirror. Here are the top 10 highlights surrounding the emergency and the violence in Sri Lanka: 1. State of emergency: Following the imposition of the emergency, the police and tri-forces have been given extraordinary powers. The force can arrest anyone who creates violence or disturbs communal harmony and sentence them to 20 years of imprisonment or even life imprisonment.
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