A nationwide emergency was imposed in Sri Lanka after anti-Muslim attacks erupted in Kandy in the central highlands.
Several mosques, shops and homes were set on fire earlier this week.
The riots followed the death of a 41-year-old man from the majority Sinhala community, after he was beaten up by a group of Muslim youth in what appears to have been a road-rage incident. The suspects were later arrested.
The subsequent violence targeting mosques, Muslim-owned shops and homes, has sparked anxiety and insecurity among Muslims in Sri Lanka, especially coming just a week after similar arson attacks in the eastern town of Ampara, and another last November n Galle (pronounced Gaul).
The incidents also bring back disturbing memories of anti-Muslim riots in 2014 in Aluthgama, about 60 km south of Colombo, that left at least four persons dead and injured as many as 80.
Early signs of resurgent Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism in the country emerged in 2012, three years after the island’s civil war ended. The reactionary forces among the island’s Sinhala majority community had found a new enemy now - the island’s Muslims.
A young and hard-line Sinhala-Buddhist organisation Bodu Bala Sena sought a ban on halal certification, and later spoke of launching a campaign against the niqab worn by some Muslim women. In 2013, a spate of attacks led by hard-line Sinhala-Buddhist groups, targeted Muslim-run shops in Colombo.
Muslims constitute about 9% of the country’s population. Despite being native Tamil speakers, Muslims have sought recognition as a separate ethnic group, especially since their en-masse expulsion from Jaffna peninsula in 1990 by the LTTE.
The government has condemned the attacks, but locals have accused the police and the security forces on the ground of inaction during the height of violence.
Now, after days of unrest, an uneasy calm previls in Kandy.
