An Improvised pipe bomb diffused near Bhandarnaike Airport
An Improvised Explosive Device (IED) discovered near the road to Sri Lanka’s Bandaranaike International Airport has been successfully diffused by the Sri Lankan Air Force. It was a homemade bomb, with explosives put into a pipe.
There were disruptions to flights, but Sri Lanka’s national carrier Sri Lankan has already asked leaving passengers to report to check-in counters at least 4 hours prior to departure because of tight security checks at the Bandaranaike International airport.
Sri Lankan Airforce Spokesperson – Group Captain Gihan Seneviratne said that the IED was locally manufactured. He said, “It was a crude six-foot pipe bomb that was found by the roadside. We have removed it and safely defused it at an air force location.”
In the meantime, the death toll has risen to 290 with more than 500 injured.
The Prime Minister of Sri Lanka – Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that though there was information about the possible terror attacks, but he was not informed about the same.
For the records, the Sri Lankan Police Chief had issued an intelligence alert to top officers 10 days ago that suicide bombers of National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NJT) are planning to attack the churches in Colombo. The NTJ is a radical Muslim group in Sri Lanka that was linked in 2018 to the vandalization of Buddhist statues.
Cracking down on suspects, the Superintendent of Police – Ruwan Gunasekara said, that till now, more than 24 people have been arrested in connection with the attacks. Besides, 2 men were arrested for behaving suspiciously at a hotel in the town of Dambulla.
Condemning the attacks, the Prime Minister of New Zealand – Jacinda Ardern said, “New Zealand condemns all acts of terrorism, and our resolve has only been strengthened by the attack on our soil on the 15th of March. To see an attack in Sri Lanka while people were in churches and at hotels is devastating. “New Zealand rejects all forms of extremism and stands for freedom of religion and the right to worship safely.”
The Sri Lankan Army has increased the security around residences of clergymen, churches and religious places of worship, as well as prominent State institutions. More than 1,000 troops have been deployed in capital city Colombo.
Tourists and residents trying to get in touch with relatives via social media on Monday were unable to do so without a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or a foreign SIM card, as the Government had blocked the social media in the aftermath of the attacks. People using foreign SIM cards which roam onto non-Sri Lankan networks were unaffected.
