Sri Lankan President calls for all party conference in wake of Sunday’s attacks
Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena has called for an all party conference on Thursday to discuss the current situation and future steps in wake of Sunday’s attacks that killed 359 people. The President will also hold a meeting of Inter-religious advisory committee.
Earlier, country’s police chief and defence secretary were asked to resign following the President’s statement that he will make immediate changes in the high security positions as there was negligence in carrying out responsibilities.
Meanwhile, security situation is slowly returning to normalcy as no major incident was reported on Wednesday. Security forces have taken control of all sensitive and important places with more than six thousand army jawans deployed across the country. The investigation into the attacks is continuing and several people were arrested from different areas in overnight operations.
More than 60 people were arrested with 32 under CID interrogation. State Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardena told a media briefing on Wednesday that nine suicide bombers were involved at eight locations in the attacks and identity of eight of them have been established.
Ruwan Wijewardena has expressed worry that most of the attackers were from well to do families and one of them even received his college education in Britain. Several suspects had travelled abroad in the past and their links with foreign terrorist organisations including ISIS is under probe.
