Hundred and thirty people killed and over 250 injured in serial blasts in Colombo’s churches as well in international hotels, according to news reports.
Incidentally, the blasts took place while Christian minorities were celebrating Easter festival. The morning mass at all the three churches were in full strength.
The Churches where the blasts went off around 8.45 am (IST) are; St Anthony’s in Colombo, St Sebastian’s in the western coastal town of Negombo and another in eastern town of Batticaloa. Apart from these three churches, blasts also occurred in three hotels – Shangrila, the Cinnamon Grand and the Kingsbury.
Photos in social media platforms showed the roof of one of the church had been almost blown off in the blast and the floor was littered with a mixture of roof tiles, splintered wood and blood.
Foreigners and local who were injured in hotel blasts were admitted to the Colombo General Hospital.
Hospital sources confirm of 129 deaths so far in the blasts. While 42 people died in Colombo, 60 in Negombo and 27 in Battialoa.
So far no group has claimed responsibility for the blasts.
Ironically, only Catholics form just six per cent of the total Buddhist population in Sri Lanka. They include from both the Tamil and majority Sinhalese ethnic groups.
In the past, however, the needle of suspicion would have been on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which ran a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland in the norther and eastern provices of the island nation for nearly 30 years before its collapse in 2009 after Sri Lankan army killed its supreme leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Since then the LTTE was slowly but steadily decimated and peace returned in the island nation.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan PM Rani Wickremasinghe has called for an emergency cabinet meeting to take stock of the situation. News reports emanating Colombo says that the Sri Lankan army troops were pressed into action to avoid any further blasts.