“When the fire started, he screamed for help and asked people to help us get out of the house. There is no way to get outside from upstairs, but we thought he would have escaped,” Mr. Samsudeen said. “In the morning when we came back to see our house, we found his body.”

Mr. Basith’s uncle, Mohammed Maleek, said he was in communication with Mr. Basith in his final minutes and that his nephew had assured him he would be safe because the police were everywhere.

In an audio message sent to his uncle, Mr. Basith described the scene as the mob could be heard outside. The audio was circulating in Kandy after his death and as a sign of its authenticity, a cabinet minister who had visited the scene referred to the message in Parliament on Tuesday.

“They have broken all the doors in our house, large stones are falling inside,” Mr. Basith said in the message. “Hello, yes I am inside our house and they are burning something. There are flames coming inside.”

Later, his voice grew tense.

“They have burned the house,” he said. “The house is burning.”

The latest tensions, coming a week after similar mob attacks against Muslims in an eastern region, erupted after a Sinhalese truck driver was injured by a group of Muslim men in what has been described as a road rage incident. The man died from his injuries on Saturday.

After his death, officials and Kandy residents said, extremist Buddhist monks who have incited communal violence in the past descended on the area, offering their condolences. But many believed that their presence amid the tensions fueled the violent backlash against the Muslims.

“Two controversial Buddhist monks who have been at the center of similar anti-minority clashes before had been in the area on Sunday night,” said Rishad Bathiudeen, Sri Lanka’s minister of industry and commerce who was in Kandy to survey the damage. “We demand their arrest for inciting communal violence.”</s>COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka declared a nationwide state of emergency for 10 days on Tuesday to stop the spread of communal violence, a government spokesman said, after clashes erupted between majority Buddhists and members of the minority Muslim community.

Sri Lanka's Special Task Force and Police officers stand guard near a burnt house after a clash between two communities in Digana, central district of Kandy, Sri Lanka March 6, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

Tension has been growing between the two communities in Sri Lanka over the past year, with some hardline Buddhist groups accusing Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam and vandalizing Buddhist archaeological sites.

Some Buddhist nationalists have also protested against the presence in Sri Lanka of Muslim Rohingya asylum-seekers from mostly Buddhist Myanmar, where Buddhist nationalism has also been on the rise.

“At a special cabinet meeting, it was decided to declare a state of emergency for 10 days to prevent the spread of communal riots,” government spokesman Dayasiri Jayasekara told Reuters.

He said some people were instigating violence through Facebook and warned of tough action against them.

The unrest in the Indian Ocean island’s central district of Kandy began on Sunday after the funeral of a truck driver from the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community who died days after he was involved in an altercation with four Muslims, the government has said.

It was not clear why the initial altercation occurred but after the driver’s funeral on Monday, a Sinhalese mob attacked Muslim shops, police said. The body of a Muslim youth was found in a burnt-out house early on Tuesday, police said.

Muslims make up about 9 percent of Sri Lanka’s 21 million people. Buddhists make up about 70 percent and ethnic Tamils, most of whom are Hindus, about 13 percent.

The government sent troops and elite police to the area on Monday and imposed a curfew. A curfew was reimposed in two districts of Kandy on Tuesday, police said.

The government ended a 26-year civil war in 2009 with the defeat of Tamil separatist rebels. Muslim communities were occasionally caught up in that violence but on the whole, Muslims managed to stay out of the war.</s>Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force and Police officers stand guard near a burnt house after a clash between two communities in Digana, central district of Kandy March 6, 2018. — Reuters picCOLOMBO, March 6 — Sri Lanka has declared a state of emergency for 10 days to rein in the spread of communal violence, a government spokesman said today, a day after Buddhists and Muslims clashed in the Indian Ocean island’s central district of Kandy.

Tension has been growing between the two communities in Sri Lanka over the past year, with some hardline Buddhist groups accusing Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam and vandalising Buddhist archaeological sites.

Some Buddhist nationalist have also protested against the presence in Sri Lanka of Muslim Rohingya asylum-seekers from mostly Buddhist Myanmar, where Buddhist nationalism has also been on the rise.

“At a special cabinet meeting, it was decided to declare a state of emergency for 10 days to prevent the spread of communal riots to other parts of the country,” the spokesman, Dayasiri Jayasekara, told Reuters.

“It was also decided to take stern action against people who are instigating violence through Facebook,” he added, referring to postings on social media.

The government sent troops and elite police to Kandy after a mob set fire to a Muslim-owned shop, imposing a curfew there yesterday to prevent clashes between majority Sinhalese Buddhists and minority Muslims. — Reuters</s>Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Tuesday declared a nationwide state of emergency for seven days in a bid to curb communal violence after clashes erupted between majority Buddhists and members of the Muslim minority.

Under the emergency, which was imposed for the first time since 2011, following the end of the civil war with Tamil separatists two years before that, security forces can carry out searches without warrant and detain suspects without charges.

The move came after police said Sinhalese mobs targeted the properties of minority Muslims in eastern and central Sri Lanka, incensed by the death of a Sinhalese truck driver after a clash with Muslim youths in the central Kandy district on Sunday.

Some people were instigating violence through Facebook, the government said, warning of tough action against them.

"The president has instructed the police to impartially, comprehensively and promptly deal with those engaged in criminal activities and those causing or attempting to cause ethnic and religious tensions, irrespective of their ethnic or religious identities and political affiliations," said a statement issued by Sirisena's office.

Tension has been growing between the two communities in Sri Lanka over the past year, with some hardline Buddhist groups accusing Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam and vandalizing Buddhist archaeological sites.

Some Buddhist nationalists have also protested against the presence in Sri Lanka of Muslim Rohingya asylum-seekers from mostly Buddhist Myanmar, where Buddhist nationalism has also been on the rise.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told parliament that "political groups" he did not identify were trying to incite hatred against Muslims.

Muslims make up about 9 percent of Sri Lanka's 21 million people. Buddhists make up about 70 percent and ethnic Tamils, most of whom are Hindus, about 13 percent.

Analysts say the government has been alarmed by the speed with which the trouble spread in two districts of Kandy and sought to contain it through the imposition of emergency.

Postings have appeared on Facebook threatening more attacks on Muslims.

The unrest in Kandy began on Sunday after the funeral of the Sinhalese truck driver, the government said.

It was not clear why the initial altercation occurred, but after the driver's funeral on Monday, a Sinhalese mob attacked Muslim shops, police said. Early on Tuesday the body of a Muslim youth was found in a burned-out shop, police said.

Area residents have said more than 30 shops and houses have been damaged while scores of mosques also have been attacked since the government imposed a curfew on Monday. Police reimposed the curfew until 0600 hours (0030 GMT) Wednesday.

The U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka said it was important that the government act quickly against perpetrators of sectarian violence, and protect religious minorities and their places of worship. It also asked for an early lifting of the emergency.</s>Anti-Muslim rioting flared again in the hills of central Sri Lanka despite a state of emergency, as the government ordered popular social media networks blocked to stop the violence from spreading.

Anti-Muslim rioting flared again in the hills of central Sri Lanka despite a state of emergency, as the government ordered popular social media networks blocked to stop the violence from spreading.

In the small town of Katugastota, Ikram Mohamed, a Muslim, stood outside the wreckage of the textile shop where he worked, after Sinhalese Buddhist mobs set it on fire. He and the owner had closed the shop on Wednesday morning when police announced the curfew.

They returned to find it destroyed, and clothing and dressmaker dummies smoking in the ruins. “There are many good Sinhalese people,” he said. “This is being done by a few jealous people.”

Sri Lankan police officers attempt to douse burning shops in Ambatenna, in central Sri Lanka (Rukmal Gamage/AP) Muslims own many of the small businesses in Sri Lanka, a fact that many believe has helped make them targets as Buddhist-Muslim relations have worsened in recent years amid the rise of hard-line Buddhist groups, which accuse Muslims of forcing people to convert and destroying sacred Buddhist sites. Area residents said mobs swept through at least two towns in the central hills, attacking two mosques and a string of Muslim-owned shops and buildings.

An internet company official, meanwhile, said the government had ordered popular social media networks blocked in areas near the violence, and slowed dramatically across the rest of the country. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under company policy, said the order was for Facebook, Instagram, Viber and WhatsApp.

While the hills were flooded with soldiers and policemen ordering people off the street, little, if anything, appeared to have changed elsewhere in the country. While government officials have not directly accused Buddhist extremists of being behind the violence, many comments appeared aimed at them.

The government will “act sternly against groups that are inciting religious hatred”, Cabinet minister Rauff Hakeem said after a meeting with the president. The emergency announcement came after Buddhist mobs swept through towns outside Kandy, burning at least 11 Muslim-owned shops and homes.

The attacks followed reports that a Buddhist man had been killed by a group of Muslims. Police fired tear gas into the crowds, and later announced a curfew in the town. Sri Lanka has long been divided between the majority Sinhalese, who are overwhelmingly Buddhist, and minority Tamils who are Hindu, Muslim and Christian. The country remains deeply scarred by its 1983-2009 civil war, when Tamil rebels fought to create an independent homeland.</s>The Sri Lankan government has imposed an island-wide emergency in the wake of anti-Muslim violence in Kandy, a city in the central highlands, on March 4-5, and in Ampara, a district with a near equal population of Muslims and Sinhala-Buddhists on the country’s eastern coast, on February 26. In Kandy, two mosques, shops and other buildings were set on fire, and two mosques and shops were vandalised in Ampara. In Kandy, a Buddhist man succumbed on March 4 to injuries after an altercation a few days earlier with a group of Muslim men, and a Muslim man’s body was found in a building that was the target of arson in Kandy on Tuesday. A Sinhala-Buddhist extremist group is suspected to be behind the violence.

An emergency was in force in Sri Lanka for 40 years from 1971 during the civil war over the Tamil demand for a separate state. This is the first time it has been reimposed after it was withdrawn in 2011, and it underlines the new political and ethnic dynamics in Sri Lanka.

The incidents of the last few days are the latest in a series of violent episodes targeting the Muslim community that Sri Lanka has witnessed in the post-war years. (According to the 2011 Census, Muslims are slightly more than 9% of Sri Lanka’s 20.3 million population; Sinhala Buddhists are 75%, and Tamils 11%.)

They are a direct fallout of the triumphalism and majoritarianism that took hold in sections of the Sinhala Buddhist majority community after the military defeat of the LTTE, encouraged by the Mahinda Rajapakse regime as it went about tightening its political grip on the country. Since then, a raft of groups openly professing hatred for Muslims, as well as Christians, has come up, some of them using social media to spread their venom. Among them are the Bodu Bala Sena, Sinhala Ravaya, Sinhale, and Mahason Balaya. The first and foremost of these, Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), was formed in 2012, and enjoyed the patronage of the Rajapakse clan.

That year, monks destroyed a mosque in Dambulla, saying it violated a Buddhist religious area. In 2013, the warehouse of a clothes retailer owned by a Muslim businessman was targeted; in 2014, four people were killed and 80 injured in riots in the western seaside district of Kalutara, where a picturesque coastal road goes past alternate Sinhalese and Muslim villages that had never seen communal tensions earlier. In between, the BBS ran a campaign against halal certification and burqas. The monk who founded the group, Galabode Aththe Gnanasara, made incendiary speeches against Muslims, one of which was directly responsible for the riots. The Secretariat for Muslims (SFM), a Muslim civil society organisation, documented 538 anti-Muslim incidents from 2013 to 2015. There were several incidents against Christians as well.

Rajapakse’s defeat in the presidential election led to a de-escalation of Buddhist-Muslim tensions. But the incidents began occurring again towards the end of 2016, when some Muslims, who had been displaced from northern Sri Lanka during the war, began going back to reclaim their lands in villages in Mannar district in the Vanni, bordering a national sanctuary called Wilpattu, and close to the Sinhala majority areas of the northwestern province of Puttalam and north-central province of Anuradhapura.

There were several incidents through April and May 2017 across Sri Lanka. Around the same time, the Buddhist outfits began a campaign against the arrival of a group of Rohingya in Colombo. On September 28 last year, a monk led an attack on a UN-maintained safehouse for the Rohingya in the Colombo suburb of Mt Lavinia. The Rohingya group had been taken into custody by the Navy after they attempted to land on the Sri Lankan coast, and they were ordered to be kept in the safehouse under UN protection. The group that attacked the safehouse alleged the Rohingya had killed Buddhists in Myanmar. In November, Buddhists and Muslims clashed on the streets of Gintota in Galle.

The Buddhist-Muslim tensions of the last few years have surfaced nearly a century after the only such incident in the 20th century in 1915, at the time of a Sinhala Buddhist revival around the perceived marginalisation of the community under colonial rule. After independence, political leaders starting with SWRD Bandaranike harvested Sinhala-Buddhism. The rest is well-documented history. From the 1956 “Sinhala only” Act to the 1983 anti-Tamil riots, Sri Lanka had gone from being an inspiration for Lee Kwan Yew to South Asia’s ethnic cauldron within three decades. As Tamil separatism grew, morphing from a political movement to militancy and terrorism, the Muslims of Sri Lanka found themselves in constantly changing situations.

The language of Sri Lanka’s Muslims is Tamil. The majority of Muslims, most of whom are businessmen or traders, still live in the East, which was part of the LTTE’s Eelam vision. Until 1990, the Muslims believed they had common cause with Tamil political aspirations. But that year, a newly resurgent LTTE following the IPKF’s departure from Sri Lanka, drove out nearly 100,000 Muslims from their northern citadel of Jaffna and other parts of northern Sri Lanka under its control. The eviction took place overnight — people left behind their houses, lands, shops, and possessions, becoming a new set of internally displaced people in Sri Lanka’s conflict.

That was when the Sri Lankan Muslim found a new political consciousness, and within a decade of its formation, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress was seen by Sinhala political parties as a “kingmaker” party. Winning seats in Parliament from the predominantly Muslim areas of Ampara; from Batticaloa, where Muslims are the second biggest community after the majority Hindu Tamils; from Trincomalee up the eastern coast, where they are one-third of the population (Tamils and Sinhalese are also one-third each); as well as a few from Kandy and other areas, the community was in the thick of national politics. It has always sided with the ruling party, and is even now part of the coalition government.

Once the war against the LTTE was over, it was almost as if Sinhala-Buddhist extremism, which conflates religion with territory and language, needed a new enemy. Muslims have emerged as that enemy, the rise of Islamist terrorism providing a convenient handle with which to demonise the community.

Sri Lanka’s Buddhist extremism has found an ally in Myanmar’s hardline Buddhist monks. Both countries practise the Theravada variant of Buddhism. In September 2014, ahead of the presidential election, the BBS invited Ashin Wirathu, a monk from Mandalay in Myanmar and the leader of a virulently anti-Muslim group called 969, known for his toxic speeches. At a rally in Colombo, he said he would join hands with the BBS to “protect” Buddhists. Though he has not made a return visit since, extremist Buddhists in Sri Lanka have clearly taken inspiration from the anti-Rohingya movement in Myanmar. Coincidence or not, the first clashes against the Rohingya in Myanmar erupted in 2012, around the time that BBS was formed in Sri Lanka.

For all the latest Explained News, download Indian Express App</s>After the imposition of emergency in Sri Lanka, the government has now ordered popular social media networks be blocked to stop violence from spreading. To calm the situation across the South Asian island nation, the police have decided to continue the curfew across the city for the third consecutive day. As per reports, the state of emergency was required as communal violence was rising over the past year. As per internet company officials, the government has ordered to block the popular social media networks blocked near the areas of the violence and will be soon blocked across the country.

For now, the Social media sites named Facebook, Instagram, Viber and Whatsapp has been blocked, said an official. These networks seemed to be blocked in Colombo, while in other areas it was reported to be working very slowly. President Maithripala Sirisena had declared the state of emergency on Tuesday and the details of the order have to remain uncleared. Since the weekend there were incidents of arson attacks and riots have been reported in the Kandy district. Following the growing tension between the Buddhist and Muslim communities, the government decided to take this extreme step.

ALSO READ: 10-day emergency imposed in Sri Lanka over communal violence

As per reports, the tension rose when some Muslim people allegedly forced Buddhist people to change their religion and vandalised Buddhist archaeological sites. After the incident, the clashes between the two communities were on a hike. Last month, five people were wounded and several shops were set ablaze during a clash between Buddhist and Muslim groups. Meanwhile, the government officials have told the public that they will take a stern action against those involved in inciting religious hatred.

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ALSO READ: India vs Sri Lanka 1st T20I, Nidahas Trophy: How to watch online, live streaming and live coverage on TV, when is India vs Sri Lanka match, what time does it start</s>COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s president has declared a state of emergency amid fears that anti-Muslim attacks in a central hill town could spread.

Details of the emergency decree were not immediately announced, and it was unclear how it would affect life on the South Asian island nation, where Buddhist-Muslim tensions have flared in recent years as extremist Buddhist organizations have spread.

A tweet from the office of President Maithripala Sirisena says the decree was issued to “redress the unsatisfactory security situation prevailing in certain parts of the country.”

The announcement came after Buddhist mobs swept through the hill town of Kandy on Monday, burning at least 11 Muslim-owned shops and homes, after a Buddhist man was reportedly killed by a group of Muslims.</s>Anti-Muslim rioting flared again in the hills of central Sri Lanka despite a state of emergency, as the government ordered popular social media networks blocked to stop the violence from spreading.

The police also ordered a curfew across much of the region for the third straight day, trying to calm the situation.

In the small town of Katugastota, Ikram Mohamed, a Muslim, stood outside the wreckage of the textile shop where he worked, after Sinhalese Buddhist mobs set it on fire.

He and the owner had closed the shop on Wednesday morning when police announced the curfew.

They returned to find it destroyed, and clothing and dressmaker dummies smoking in the ruins.

“There are many good Sinhalese people,” he said. “This is being done by a few jealous people.”

Muslims own many of the small businesses in Sri Lanka, a fact that many believe has helped make them targets as Buddhist-Muslim relations have worsened in recent years amid the rise of hard-line Buddhist groups, which accuse Muslims of forcing people to convert and destroying sacred Buddhist sites.

Area residents said mobs swept through at least two towns in the central hills, attacking two mosques and a string of Muslim-owned shops and buildings.

An internet company official, meanwhile, said the government had ordered popular social media networks blocked in areas near the violence, and slowed dramatically across the rest of the country.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under company policy, said the order was for Facebook, Instagram, Viber and WhatsApp.

Some of those networks appeared to be blocked in Colombo, the capital, while others worked sporadically and very slowly.

President Maithripala Sirisena declared the state of emergency on Tuesday, though a day later details of the decree remained unclear.

While the hills were flooded with soldiers and policemen ordering people off the street, little, if anything, appeared to have changed elsewhere in the country.

While government officials have not directly accused Buddhist extremists of being behind the violence, many comments appeared aimed at them.

The government will “act sternly against groups that are inciting religious hatred”, Cabinet minister Rauff Hakeem said after a meeting with the president.

The emergency announcement came after Buddhist mobs swept through towns outside Kandy, burning at least 11 Muslim-owned shops and homes.

The attacks followed reports that a Buddhist man had been killed by a group of Muslims. Police fired tear gas into the crowds, and later announced a curfew in the town.

Sri Lanka has long been divided between the majority Sinhalese, who are overwhelmingly Buddhist, and minority Tamils who are Hindu, Muslim and Christian.

The country remains deeply scarred by its 1983-2009 civil war, when Tamil rebels fought to create an independent homeland.

While the rebels were eventually crushed, the Buddhist-Muslim religious divide has taken hold in recent years.</s>Sri Lanka Tuesday declared a nationwide state of emergency to quell anti-Muslim riots that have killed at least two people and damaged dozens of mosques and homes.

"The cabinet of ministers decided on tough measures, including a 10-day nationwide state of emergency," Minister of City Planning Rauff Hakeem said as police imposed a curfew in the riot-hit central district of Kandy.

The government deployed heavily-armed police commandos in the hill station region, which is popular with tourists, after rioters defied an overnight curfew and went on the rampage.

The curfew in the district was extended after the body of a Muslim man was pulled from the ashes of a burnt building, threatening to further raise communal tensions that have flared up across Sri Lanka in recent weeks.

The emergency declaration gives authorities sweeping powers to arrest and detain suspects for long periods, and allows the government to deploy forces where needed.

It is the first time in seven years Sri Lanka has resorted to such a measure. The island nation was under a state of emergency for nearly three decades as government forces battled Tamil rebels in a civil war that ended in 2009.

Hakeem said the riots were concentrated in Kandy -- home to famous tea plantations and Buddhist relics -- but the government wanted to send a strong message given outbreaks of communal violence elsewhere recently.

A police spokesman said earlier Tuesday hundreds of commandos from the police Special Task Force had been deployed to Kandy to restore order and enforce the curfew.

Muslim homes, business and mosques were badly damaged in riots Monday triggered by the death of a Sinhalese man at the hands of a mob last week.

The Sinhalese are a mainly Buddhist ethnic group making up nearly three-quarters of Sri Lanka's 21 million people. Muslims account for 10 percent of its population.

More than two dozen arrests have been made and an inquiry opened into police conduct in Kandy, just the latest region to be plagued by religious and ethnic conflict.

Mobs set fire to Muslim-owned businesses and attacked a mosque in the east of the country last week after a Muslim chef was accused of adding contraceptives to food sold to Sinhalese.

The government dismissed the allegation as baseless and ordered the arrest of those fomenting unrest in the area.

Last November riots in the south of the island left one man dead and homes and vehicles damaged.

In June 2014 riots between Buddhists and Muslims left four dead and many injured.

That violence was instigated by a Buddhist extremist group whose leaders are on trial accused of spurring religious conflict.
Sri Lanka imposes a nationwide 10-day state of emergency, the first since 2011, in an effort to calm communal tensions. The previous day, a Sinhalese Buddhist mob attack on Sri Lankan Muslim shops in the region of Kandy, Central Province, left a Muslim person dead.