Category: Local News

A person has been arrested over an attempt to bribe the Horowpathana Police OIC to obtain bail for a suspect of the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) who is under custody.

UNP MP Dr. Kavinda Jayawardena urged the government to acquire the proposed Sharia University in Batticaloa and convert it as a state university.

The University Grant Commission (UGC) yesterday said that no organisation by the name of Sharia University or Batticaloa Campus had requested permission to conduct degree courses.

Almost all children of parliamentarians and senior security officers had not been sent to school yesterday as well, Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) General Secretary, Joseph Stalin said yesterday adding that the attendance of students in schools was low for the second consecutive day.

Sri Lanka will allow duty free import of security scanners and metal detectors to be used at hotels, schools or other companies, State Minister for Finance Eran Wickramaratne said.

Sri Lanka’s president says “99%” of the remaining suspects in the Easter attacks on churches and hotels have been arrested and their explosive materials seized, and it is safe for tourists to return to the Indian Ocean island nation.

Investigators have dismantled a major part of the network linked to Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday bombings, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Tuesday, but warned the chance of further Islamist militant attacks could not be ruled out.

Army Commander Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake has requested the general public to go back to their normal life and that the tri-forces and the police were dedicated to their safety throughout day and night.

The overseas travel ban imposed on former Secretary of Defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been temporarily lifted.

The Saudi Embassy in Colombo says that it categorically rejects a media report by a newspaper in Lebanon that Saudi Arabia knew the Easter Sunday terror attacks beforehand.

The Mahanayake Theras of four chapters said in a joint statement today that people should refrain from conducting mega Vesak celebrations that involved large public gatherings owing to the security situation prevalent in the country.

General Secretary of the SLFP, former Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara made an appeal to Saudi Arabia and Qatar yesterday not to let extremist groups in those countries to finance Muslim fundamentalists in Sri Lanka like National Thawheed Jamaath (NTJ) that carried out the Easter Sunday carnage.

President Maithripala Sirisena has instructed security forces not to tag along journalists or any other external parties while conducting search operations.

All suspected plotters and those directly linked to Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday bombings have either been arrested or are dead, the country’s acting police chief said on Monday.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has identified more than Rs.140 million cash and other assets worth over Rs.7 billion belonging to the terrorists involved in the Easter Sunday attacks, Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekera said.

Nine of the ten suspects, who were arrested at the copper factory allegedly used to manufacture the bombs detonated at three churches and three luxury hotels on Easter Sunday, have been released on bail.