{"id":58251,"date":"2018-03-09T22:37:43","date_gmt":"2018-03-10T03:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=58251"},"modified":"2018-03-09T22:37:43","modified_gmt":"2018-03-10T03:37:43","slug":"muslims-engage-in-jummaprayers-on-friday-while-police-and-army-provide-protection-to-mosques-throughout-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=58251","title":{"rendered":"Muslims Engage in “Jumma”Prayers on Friday While Police and Army Provide Protection To Mosques Throughout Sri Lanka."},"content":{"rendered":"

Soldiers and police guarded mosques across Sri Lanka during Friday prayers amid fears of new anti-Muslim attacks after four days of riots that have left at least three dead.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most Muslim-owned businesses in the island nation remained shut in protest at attacks by mainly Buddhist Sinhalese groups concentrated around the central city of Kandy.<\/p>\n

Armed troops and constables patrolled outside mosques while in Kandy, prayers were said in open grounds in many places because mosques had been burnt or vandalised.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“There were no incidents during the Friday prayers,” a police official in Colombo said, adding that investigators had stepped up the search for those who took part in the violence.<\/p>\n

At least 140 people, including the main instigator, have been arrested over the unrest, police said. They named the main suspect as Amith Weerasinghe, a Sinhalese known for anti-Muslim activism and outspoken social media posts. He was held Thursday.<\/p>\n

– Internet blocked –<\/strong><\/p>\n

The riots, which began Monday after a man from the Sinhalese majority died from injuries sustained in an attack by Muslims last week, have left nearly 200 Muslim businesses and homes destroyed. Eleven mosques were attacked.<\/p>\n

Nine of the damaged mosques were in the picturesque tea-growing Kandy district, a draw for international tourists now suffering widespread cancellations.<\/p>\n

Kandy residents said shops and offices were open on Friday and life was slowly returning to normal. Muslims were seen inspecting the damage to their burnt out businesses.<\/p>\n

Troops guarded every junction while security personnel carried out patrols on motorcycles and in armoured personnel carriers.<\/p>\n

Internet services, which were blocked across Kandy, were restored on Friday, but access to social media sites such as Facebook remained blocked across Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Police said Sinhalese extremists were using social media sites and messaging applications to spread hate speech and instigate attacks on the Muslim minority.<\/p>\n

The government declared a state of emergency on Tuesday as the unrest escalated when a Muslim man was found dead in a burnt out building.<\/p>\n

Army chief Mahesh Senanayake visited Kandy on Thursday and promised an increased military presence near mosques.<\/p>\n

Despite a security alert across the country, three boats belonging to a Muslim businessman just outside the Kandy district were torched early Friday, police said. There were no casualties.<\/p>\n

The official Tourist Board said it was safe for foreign tourists to visit Kandy, but hotel operators say they have suffered large-scale cancellations.<\/p>\n

“We had 80 percent occupancy, but it has now dropped to about 30 percent,” a deluxe hotel operator in the town of Kandy said Friday, asking not to be named.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said Thursday night that the riots had been a huge blow to Sri Lanka’s efforts to bolster tourism after ending a 37-year-old ethnic civil war.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka received about half a million tourists in 2009, but the numbers shot up to 2.1 million in 2017, with nearly half a million visiting the island in the first two months of this year.<\/p>\n

There have been several communal clashes in recent years in Sri Lanka. Sinhalese Buddhists make up 75 percent of the country’s 21 million people, and 10 percent are Muslims.<\/p>\n

Sinhalese and Muslim groups staged a demonstration outside the Colombo railway station on Thursday, demanding tougher action against the attackers.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:ECONOMY NEXT<\/em><\/p>\n

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Soldiers and police guarded mosques across Sri Lanka during Friday prayers amid fears of new anti-Muslim attacks after four days of riots that have left at least three dead. Most Muslim-owned businesses in the island nation remained shut in protest at attacks by mainly Buddhist Sinhalese groups concentrated around the central city of Kandy. Armed …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Muslims Engage in “Jumma”Prayers on Friday While Police and Army Provide Protection To Mosques Throughout Sri Lanka.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58252,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58251\/revisions\/58252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}