SLMC leader condemns attack on muslims

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 1998, 23:59 GMT]
"You should turn your guns on the chauvinism against which you took up arms and not on your brother minority" said Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader and Sri Lanka's Minister of Ports, M.H.M Ashraff, as he lashed out at the Liberation Tigers today at the opening ceremony of the Hatton National Bank branch office in Kalmunai, the booming Muslim town on the eastern coast of the Ampara district.

He said that it is foolish to think that the Tamils can achieve independence by supressing the freedom struggle of the Muslims.

The SLMC leader was speaking in the aftermath of an attack last night in the nearby Muslim town of Ninthavur in which a Muslim home guard was killed and four others were wounded.

The Sri Lankan Police in the area said that a group of Liberation Tigers were responsible for the attack.

The minister's convoy had passed that way to Oluvil a few minutes before the incident they said.

Other sources said that Mr.MHM Ashraff had to speak thus to deflect the suspicion in government circles following the recent arrests of Muslims in unusually large numbers from SLMC strong holds in Batticaloa and Ampara for alleged links with the LTTE that some senior politicians in the SLMC were acting in collusion with the Liberation Tigers.