The death toll in a series of eight blasts that struck three churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday has risen to 290, according to police.
Sri Lankan police have also arrested 24 men in connection with the bomb blasts―one of the deadliest in the island nation's history. Earlier, the police had detained 13 people in connection. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said the number of arrests on the incidents have now gone up to 24.
The government said it will not disclose the details of the suspects involved in the attacks to prevent them from getting publicity. Reports, however, state that the 24 men detained are from the same radical minority Muslim group.
The blasts targeted three churches―St Anthony's Church in Colombo, St Sebastian's Church in the western coastal town of Negombo and another church in the eastern town of Batticaloa at around 8.45 am as Easter Sunday mass were in progress.
Explosions were also reported from three five-star hotels―the Shangrila, the Cinnamon Grand and the Kingsbury.
Nearly 500 people have been injured in the blasts, police said.
Later on Sunday, a powerful blast in the capital's southern suburb near the Colombo Zoo killed two persons. A suicide bomber blew himself up after a police team entered a house in the Colombo north suburb of Orugodawatta to conduct a search. The concrete floor of a two-storey building crashed on the team, killing three policemen in the eighth blast.
Sri Lankan government on Sunday imposed curfew with immediate effect after the blasts which was lifted at 6 am on Monday morning.
Sri Lanka Air Force said it found an improvised explosives device along a road leading to the departure terminal at the Colombo international airport Sunday night.
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An air force spokesperson said that 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,” he added.
Five Indians were killed in the blasts. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in a series of tweets, identified three of them as Lakshmi, Narayan Chandrashekhar and Ramesh on Sunday. Swaraj, on Monday, identified two more Indians killed in the blasts.
"We sadly confirm the deaths of the following two individuals in the blasts yesterday, K G Hanumantharayappa and M Rangappa," Swaraj retweetd Indian High Commission in Colombo's tweet.
The blasts shattered a decade of peace in the island nation since the end of the brutal civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The civil war ended with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, who had fought for 26 years for an independent homeland for the minority ethnic Tamils. The war is thought to have killed between 70,000 and 80,000 people.
The nation has seen some sporadic violence since. In March 2018, a state of emergency was declared after members of the majority Buddhist Sinhala community attacked mosques and Muslim-owned properties.
(With inputs from agencies)
