Blast death toll rise to 8: Rajapaksa orders probe

Colombo, May 29: Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has denounced the claymore mine attack targeting a truck carrying police commandos at the heavily-crowded town of Ratmalana on the outskirts of Colombo, and ordered a special probe as the death toll climbed to eight late last night.

Defence source here said the death toll of the blast last evening by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels has risen from six to eight overnight with one more civilian and an elite police commando succumbing to his injuries at the Colombo national hospital.

Apart from the eight deaths, which include three female civilians and an STF commando, 36 others including five STF commandos were injured and were undergoing medical treatment at hospitals in Panadura, Kalubowila and Colombo.

The President has condemned the blast as a brutal terrorist attack and gave special instructions to the police and military authorities to conduct an immediate probe and submit the report at the earliest, the President's Media Director Chandrapala Liyanage told sources by phone this morning.

The President, who is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, has also urged the defence authorities to take all possible steps to prevent such attacks in the future, he said.

President Rajapaksa in a statement expressed his condolences to the families of the blast victims and stated that the motive behind the LTTE's recent claymore mine attacks in the South was to instigate communal clashes.

At a time when government security forces were engaged in a humanitarian mission to liberate the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims from the grip of LTTE terrorism, attacks like these can be termed desperate attempts to trigger communal violence, the statement said.

Quoting the initial investigation, Military Spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said that the powerful claymore mine, hidden under the roof of an abandoned wayside shop on the main Colombo-Galle high way, had been blasted using a remote control.

This is yet another LTTE terror attack which shows no respect for civilians, he said.

The Sri Lankan Air Force maintains its main fixed-wing air transport base at Ratmalana, about 15 kilometres south of the Colombo and the blast has occurred a few hundred meters away from it.

Calling for public support, the Brigadier requested all citizens to be vigilant and to inform any suspicious activity to the security forces immediately.

The Ratmalana blast came exactly four days after a mine attack by the suspected Tamil Tigers on an army bus in the heart of Colombo city which killed one soldier and wounded six others, including three civilians.

Security in and around the capital has been stepped up following the mine attacks.

There was no immediate reaction from the LTTE regarding the recent blasts.

UNI