A woman from Kerala’s Kasargode district was killed in the blasts that rocked Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday morning. At least 190 people were killed in the serial blasts, Sri Lanka’s defence minister said.
Raseena, 52, was killed during an explosion in a Colombo hotel. She had gone to Sri Lanka to visit her relatives. “We are in touch with the high commission to bring her body back,” said Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
At least three churches, three luxury hotels and a guesthouse were among the targets of the attacks. The defence minister said that seven suspects linked to the blasts have been arrested.
A series of eight devastating bomb blasts ripped through high-end hotels and churches holding Easter services.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe condemned the attacks — the worst act of violence since the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war a decade ago — as “cowardly”, as the government imposed an immediate and indefinite curfew across the entire country of 21 million people.
The powerful blasts — six in quick succession and then two more hours later — wrought devastation, including at the capital’s well-known St Anthony’s Shrine, a historic Catholic Church.
At least two of the attacks were confirmed as being carried out by suicide bombers, according to police sources and a hotel official.
The injured flooded into local hospitals, where officials reported hundreds of wounded were being admitted.
AFP reported that Sri Lanka’s police chief Pujuth Jayasundara issued an intelligence alert to top officers 10 days ago, warning that suicide bombers planned to hit “prominent churches”.
“A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ (National Thowheeth Jama’ath) is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian high commission in Colombo,” the alert said.
The NTJ is a radical Muslim group in Sri Lanka that was linked last year to the vandalisation of Buddhist statues.
Sri Lanka’s Minister of Economic Reforms and Public Distribution, Harsha de Silva, said he had been to two of the attacked hotels and was at the scene at St Anthony’s, where he described “horrible scenes”.
“I saw many body parts strewn all over,” he tweeted, adding that there were “many casualties including foreigners”.”Please stay calm and indoors,” he added.
Embassies in Colombo warned their citizens to shelter in place, and Sri Lankan Airlines told customers to arrive at the airport four hours ahead of flights because of ramped-up security in the wake of the attacks.
First Published:
Apr 21, 2019 17:39 IST
Source: HindustanTimes