Curfew reimposed in Muslim town

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 November 2004, 15:09 GMT]
Police Tuesday reimposed curfew in a large Muslim town on Sri Lanka's east coast torn since Sunday by religious clashes after an orthodox mosque was bombed and eighteen persons, including a reporter, were injured. Kattankudy, five kilometres south of Batticaloa, was generally deserted Tuesday, patrolled by Special Task Force(STF) commandos and Police. A girl was injured when STF allegedly opened fire on a mob that was on rampage in an orthodox neighbourhood of the town Tuesday morning. More than twenty houses were damaged in the clashes.

Police said followers of Rauf Mowlavi, a cleric who preaches a pantheistic theology of Islam, had allegedly bombed the orthodox Irumbu Thaikka Mosque Monday night around 10 p.m. in retaliation to Sunday's attack on a Sufi Mosque in Kattankudy.

The Sufi mosque belongs to an Islamic preacher called Payilvaan.