Fourth months after Easter blasts, Sri Lanka ends state of emergency: Report

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On April 21, nine suicide bombers carried out a series of blasts that tore through three churches and as many high-end hotels, killing as many as 258 people in the country’s deadliest violence since the brutal civil war ended in 2009.

Sri Lanka on Friday ended the four-month-long state of emergency imposed after the deadly Easter suicide bombings by the Islamic State that killed 258 people, news agency AFP reported.

Sri Lanka had been extending the emergency on the 22nd of each month since the April 21 attacks. However, President Maithripala Sirisena’s office confirmed that the emergency has not been extended for another term.

“The president did not issue a fresh proclamation extending the emergency by a further period,” an official source was quoted as saying by news agency AFP.

On April 21, nine suicide bombers carried out a series of blasts that tore through three churches and as many high-end hotels, killing as many as 258 people in the country’s deadliest violence since the brutal civil war ended in 2009.

The government had announced a state of emergency in the country as a step to tighten its security while it hunted members of a local jihadist group which was held responsible for the attacks and which claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group.

Earlier, Sri Lanka also said that it will introduce new laws to prevent terrorism in the country as the existing ones are not adequate enough.

“There was great fear among people. That’s why we first decided to detain all terrorists by police and prosecute them. Secondly, we need to bring a new system to ensure the country’s security so that this does not happen again,” Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was quoted as saying by the ColomboPage.

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