Sri Lankan government declared state of emergency due to the Easter bombings

News24xx.com - The Sri Lankan authorities declared emergency state because the situation never subsided after a series of explosions at number of churches and luxury hotels on Easter Day last Sunday, on April 21st 2019. The Sri Lankan president's office declared state of emergency on Tuesday, April 23rd 2019 morning. With this declaration, the police have the authority to use any means to detain and interrogate suspected perpetrators without a court order.

In addition, with this declaration of emergency, the authorities also applied a curfew for all those in Sri Lanka without exception. Sri Lanka police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said emergency state is being implemented while authorities are still hunting down the party behind a series of bomb attacks which killed 310 people in total.

Gunasekera explained that since the incident occurred, the police have detained 40 people. The majority of those detained are Sri Lankans, but the police are still investigating the possibility of involvement of foreigners in the bombing. The Sri Lankan government itself blames local militant groups, the National Throwheeth Jema’ah (NTJ), as the mastermind behind these eight bomb attacks.

However, the officials are suspicious that NTJ was cooperating with international organizations so that they could launch major attacks like last Sunday. International experts also say that even though the attacks were carried out by local militants, the group is likely to be associated with Al Qaeda or ISIS.

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