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Radical Buddhist monk group in Sri Lanka declared terrorist
The US-based Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC) has classified Sri Lanka’s Bodu Bala Sena, a radical Buddhist group led by monks, as a terrorist organisation.
Labelled as a ‘Religious and Cult Terrorist Group’, the BBS has joined Al Qaeda, Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) and Hamas on the United State’s list of terrorists. In its report on the BBS, the consortium states that “the BBS engages in hate speech and attacks against minority religions.”
“It has organised various campaigns against the country’s minority Muslim and Christian communities which, according to the organisation, poses a threat to Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese-Buddhist identity,” adds TRAC.
The US organisation also says that the BBS uses “armed assault”, targets infrastructure and “seeks the enforcement of Buddhist predominance in Sri Lanka.”
Reacting to the TRA’s decision, the raucous General Secretary of the BBS, monk Galagoda Atte Gnanasara denied allegations that they were a terrorist organisation.
“The allegations are baseless,” said the saffron clad monk at a Press briefing on Tuesday.
BBS spokesman Dilantha Withanage denied that the group was responsible for inciting religious hatred in the country.
“As a democratic organisation, the BBS had not been consulted on the false allegations levelled against it. We are not worried about this at all,” said Withanage.
Meanwhile, the Police Headquarters said that yet another written complaint was lodged against BBS’s Gnanasara Thera at the Slave Island police for inciting religious hatred.
In his complaint, a Muslim man Nurdeen Mohammed Thajudeen said that Gnanasara’s statement made to the media while leaving the police station on Sunday was sacrilegious to the Holy Quran.
Gnanasara was accused of fuelling ethnic-disharmony through his hate-filled speech outside a police station where he was summoned for assaulting another leading Buddhist monk last week.
“False statements about Islam by the BBS have caused mob violence and attacks against Muslims and Muslim establishments in the past,” said Thajudeen.
news@khaleejtimes.com
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