Sri Lanka detains nearly 100 suspects for the Easter attacks

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's military has detained nearly 100 suspects during four days of search operations against remnants of an Islamist group blamed for the Easter attacks that killed 258, officials said yesterday. Some 3,000 military personnel were deployed in and around the capital as well as other key towns for cordon-and-search activities that began on Thursday, a military official said. In the first three days, security forces took 87 suspects into custody and they were handed over to police for further investigations, he added. "The number of people detained could be around 100 by now," a security official said adding that almost all were taken in for possessing drugs and in some cases illegal weapons. Similar raids were carried out in North Western Province, north of Colombo, where anti-Muslim riots this month left one man dead and left hundreds of Muslim-owned shops, homes and mosques destroyed. - AFP