Summary Sri Lanka's police have arrested three Buddhist monks over anti-Muslim attack.
COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lanka s police arrested three Buddhist monks on Monday over the destruction of a Muslim-owned clothing store that heightened religious tensions in the country, an official said.
Police superintendent Buddhika Siriwardena said the monks were detained four days after a mob of Sinhalese-Buddhist men vandalised and torched a section of the three-storey building in the Pepiliyana suburb of Colombo.
"Three monks were arrested after they surrendered today," police spokesman Buddhika Siriwardena told AFP. "They will be taken before a magistrate tomorrow. We are looking for more suspects."
Officials said the monks were among 17 held in connection with Thursday s attack which the main Muslim party in the ruling coalition said was a "sequel" to an on-going hate campaign against Muslims and other religious minorities.
Local television footage, some of which is posted on the YouTube website, showed a Buddhist monk bringing down a store CCTV camera in front of a cheering mob outside the Fashion Bug store, watched by at least four police constables.
Another monk is seen threatening a news cameraman who was later hospitalised after being assaulted by the mob.
Sri Lanka s newly-formed monk-led Bodu Bala Sena, or Buddhist Force, has denied any involvement and urged the government to bring the culprits to justice and clear the group s name.
The BBS was successful last month in forcing Islamic clerics to withdraw the halal" certification of food saying it was an affront to the majority non-Muslims in the country.
As the anti-halal move gripped the country, President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is a Buddhist, urged monks not to incite religious hatred.
The owners of the clothing store said Thursday s attack had "shocked and disturbed us a great deal and instilled fear in the minds of our staff members in carrying out their day to day work".
Muslims, who constitute about 10 percent of the country s 20 million population, are the second largest minority after the mainly Hindu ethnic Tamils. Seventy percent of the population are Sinhalese, most of whom are Buddhists.
Thursday s attack which raised safety fears among Muslims, was followed by another incident, this time against the main Tamil political party, in the island s north on Saturday.
The opposition Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said their meeting in the town of Kilinochchi was disrupted by a stone-throwing mob which had also attacked their vehicles and damaged a building while police looked on.
The military denied security forces were involved in Saturday s attack and insisted that the police had prevented a further escalation.
The United Nations estimates that Sri Lanka s ethnic civil war claimed at least 100,000 lives between 1972 and 2009, when Tamil separatist rebels were crushed in a major military offensive by government forces.
