Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa Sunday condemned the assassination of a senior minister and vowed to eradicate terrorism in the country.
Rajapaksa said in a statement that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) "has repeated its brutality targeting a leader of the Catholics and Christian communities of Sri Lanka, who played an important role in bringing about greater understanding among different communities."
An LTTE suicide bomber killed Highway and Road Development Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle who was the chief guest of a road marathon in Weliweriaya, about 19 km northeast of the capital Colombo, around 7:30 a.m. (0200 GMT).
Fourteen people were also killed and 83 others were injured in the explosion, the Ministry of Defense said.
K. A. Karunarathna, a former national marathon champion and South Asian marathon gold medalist and Luxman Alwis, a national athletic coach were also among those killed.
Rajapaksa said this act "will not weaken our resolve to eradicate terrorism from our midst, and bring peace, harmony and democracy to all our people."
He also called on the people "to be calm and collected in the face of such extreme provocation by the forces of terror."
Fernandopulle, 55, was the fourth Sri Lankan parliamentarian tobe killed this year in the island's escalating conflict.
His colleague D. M. Dassanayake was killed in a roadside bomb explosion while two Tamil minority MPs were gunned down.
The LTTE has been fighting government troops since the mid-1980s to carve out a separate homeland for the Tamil minority in the north and east, resulting in the death of more than 70,000 people.
Source:Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article