Ministry of Defence - Sri Lanka

Special Media Release

April 21, 2019

A special discussion was held with the participation of heads of security forces and all other departments regarding the current security situation in the country, and during that meeting, the government has decided to take steps to tighten security at all the religious places, tourists hotels, hospitals and embassies and provide security to all the catholic religious leaders and to important places of the government.

Furthermore, the President has instrcuted the Inspector General of the Police to impose police curfew across the country. Similarly, a National Action Unit has been established to conduct investigtaion under the guidance of the Chief of the Defence Staff and to conduct search operations to arest the culprists. Already instructions has been given to all the authorities of the hospitals to provide prompt treatment facilities to the victims.

At present, the process of body identification is being carried out and the judicial authorities are taking steps to conduct their postmortems promptly. The Government has decided to bear funeral expenses of all the deceased persons.

Currently, the security sections are conducting investigations in a broad manner on these incidents and the government has taken steps to temporarily block all the social media avenues until the investigations are concluded.

Steps have been taken to declare April 22 and 23 as holiday for all the government and private schools.

The government requests the public to ensure the peace while remaining in homes and to provide necessary assistance to security forces as the security has been tighten across the Island.

The tri-forces have been summoned to ensure the security of the public and the tri-forces will ensure the security of the people with the coordination of the Police Department.

Udaya R Senevirathne
Secretary to the President
2019-04-21

Courtesy: pmdnews.lk