4 Indians among 215 killed in Sri Lanka serial blasts

A string of eight powerful blasts, including suicide attacks, struck churches and luxury hotels frequented by foreigners in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, killing 215 people, including three Indians, and shattering a decade of peace in the island nation since the end of the brutal civil war with the LTTE.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj quoted the Indian High Commission as saying that it had been informed by the National Hospital in Colombo about the death of three Indian nationals -- Lakshmi, Narayan Chandrashekhar, Ramesh.

"We are ascertaining further details," the Minister said.

A fourth casualty was reported by authorities in Kerala, who said that a woman hailing from the state was killed in Colombo where she was holidaying.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan expressed condolences over the death of 58-year-old P.S. Raseena, who arrived in the Sri Lankan capital along with her husband to meet their relatives engaged in business in Colombo.

Raseena and her husband, who hail from Kasargode in Kerala, live in Dubai and were staying at one of the three hotels in Colombo targeted by the suicide bombers.

Meanwhile, noted Indian Tamil actress Radikaa Sarathkumar had left one of the three hotels in Colombo just before it was bombed.

Radikaa tweeted that she was staying at the Cinnamon Grand, located near the official residence of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister.

"OMG bomb blasts in SL, God be with all. I just left Cinnamon Grand hotel and it has been bombed. Can't believe this. Shocking," she tweeted.

Five persons from Andhra Pradesh's Anantapur district too had a narrow escape in the serial bomb blasts.

Amilineni Surendra Babu, who heads the SR Construction firm, sustained minor injuries while his friends escaped unhurt when a bomb went off at the Shangri La Hotel in Colombo, where they were staying.

The group, which was on a tour to Sri Lanka, was having breakfast at the hotel when a bomb ripped through the premises.

In the stampede that followed, Surendra Babu sustained minor injuries. The group later moved to a safer place. Some pictures of the injured were posted on the social media.

A police officer in Anantapur district said they did not succeed in contacting the businessmen as the communication network in the island nation was down after the serial blasts.

The blasts - one of the deadliest attacks in the country's history - targeted St Anthony's Church in Colombo, St Sebastian's Church in the western coastal town of Negombo and Zion Church in the eastern town of Batticaloa around 8.45 a.m. (local time) as the Easter Sunday mass were in progress, police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said.

The first blasts were reported at St Anthony's church in Colombo and St Sebastian's Church in Negombo just outside the capital.

Explosions were reported from three five-star hotels - the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand and the Kingsbury in Colombo.

Images circulated on social media showed severely damaged St Sebastian's church, with a shattered ceiling and blood on the pews.

Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Kishu Gomes said 33 foreign nationals have been killed in the coordinated attacks believed to be carried out by a single group. Director of the National Hospital Dr Anil Jasinghe identified 12 of the 33 foreign nationals, which include three Indians, two Chinese and one each from Poland, Denmark, Japan, Pakistan, America, Morocco and Bangladesh.

Around 500 people, including Indians, were injured in the attacks.

Briefing reporters, Gunasekera said the police was not able to confirm at the moment if they were all suicide attacks. He, however, said that one of the blasts at the Katuwapitiya (Negombo) church has signs of being what looked like a suicide attack.

An unnamed official said a suicide bomber blew himself up at the restaurant of the Cinnamon Grand hotel.

Gunasekara said that 66 bodies were kept at the National Hospital while 260 injured were receiving treatment there and 104 bodies were placed at the Negombo Hospital and 100 injured were receiving treatment at the Hospital.

Later in the day, a powerful blast in the capital's southern suburb near the Colombo Zoo killed two persons, Gunasekera said.

When a police team entered a house in the Colombo north suburb of Orugodawatta to conduct a search, a suicide bomber blew himself up causing a concrete floor of a two-storey building to crash on them, killing three policemen in the eighth blast, police said.

Soon after the eighth blast, the government imposed curfew with immediate effect. The curfew will be in force indefinitely until further notice, officials said.

Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said 13 suspects have been arrested.

State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene said "We believe these were coordinated attacks, and one group was behind them".

President Maithripala Sirisena has appealed for calm.

"I have been shocked by this totally unexpected incidents. The security forces haven been asked to take all action necessary," Sirisena said.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe termed the blasts as "cowardly attacks" and said his government was working to "contain the situation."

Late in the evening, he said "the government was aware of the information regarding a possible attack but adequate precautions were not taken to prevent it".

He also said that as per the information he has received, "the perpetrators were locals".

Security has been intensified around the religious places across the capital. The government has temporarily blocked all social media platforms.

Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, under whose leadership the Lankan Army crushed the LTTE, termed the attack as "barbaric".

Christianity is a minority religion in Sri Lanka, where the majority are Buddhists. Christians account for less than 10 per cent of the total population of 21.4 million.

Sunday's attacks are the deadliest seen in Sri Lanka since the end of the country's civil war in 2009. The civil war ended with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, who had fought for 26 years for an independent homeland for the minority ethnic Tamils. The war is thought to have killed between 70,000 and 80,000 people.

The nation has seen some sporadic violence since. In March 2018, a state of emergency was declared after members of the majority Buddhist Sinhala community attacked mosques and Muslim-owned properties.

No group has claimed responsibility for Sunday's attacks.

(With inputs from IANS)