*COLOMBO: Sri Lanka has declared a state of emergency for 10 days to reinin the spread of communal violence, a government spokesman said on Tuesday,a day after Buddhists and Muslims clashed in the Indian Ocean island’scentral district of Kandy.*
Tension has been growing between the two communities in Sri Lanka over thepast year, with some hardline Buddhist groups accusing Muslims of forcingpeople to convert to Islam and vandalizing Buddhist archaeological sites.
Some Buddhist nationalists have also protested against the presence in SriLanka of Muslim Rohingya asylum-seekers from mostly Buddhist Myanmar, whereBuddhist nationalism has also been on the rise.
“At a special cabinet meeting, it was decided to declare a state ofemergency for 10 days to prevent the spread of communal riots to otherparts of the country,” the spokesman, Dayasiri Jayasekara, told a wireservice.
“It was also decided to take stern action against people who areinstigating violence through Facebook,” he added, referring to postings onsocial media.
The government sent troops and elite police to Kandy after a mob set fireto a Muslim-owned shop, imposing a curfew there on Monday to preventclashes between majority Sinhalese Buddhists and minority Muslims.