COLOMBO: LTTE militants entered two mosques and massacred at least 170 Muslims who were praying in Kathankudy town of Eastern Batticaloa Friday evening, official sources said here Saturday.
More than 100 injured were rushed to a Batticaloa hospital, while some were being flown to Colombo by the Sri Lankan air force.
The sources said 170 people were killed in the attack on the two mosques situated a km apart.
A spokesman of the joint operations command said according to the first information received 93 Muslims were killed and over a hundred injured. However, the casualty figure would be higher as a number of bodies were taken away by their relatives, the spokesman said,
He said 3040 militants, attired in jungle fatigues and armed with automatic weapons, entered the mosques and opened fire and threw grenades. The Meera and Hussainiya mosques were damaged in the grenade attack.
Blaming the government for the failure to protect the Muslims, leaders of Sri Lanka Muslim congress (SLMC) described the incident as a “brutal massacre.”
Mr M HM Ashraf, leader of the SLMC said “this is a brutal massacre of innocent civilians by tiger terrorists who do not hesitate to enter a mosque and massacre civilians when they were praying.”
Article extracted from this publication >> August 10, 1990
