Public transport security increased
Call for vigilance following LTTE bus bombs
[Monday, January 08, 2007 - 9.00 GMT]  

The Government has called on the public to be extra observant and vigilant in the face of LTTE attacks on civilian passenger transport. The security for passenger transport has been increased, with Police and armed services carrying out random checks on passengers boarding and traveling in buses.
 
This follows the two powerful explosions in passenger buses within the 24 hours beginning 6.30 pm Friday, December 5, which killed 17 passengers and injured at least 100 persons, including women and children. Defence sources said both explosions were caused by LTTE cadres.

Police and Defence authorities state the public bus transport services are operating with normal complements of passengers on all routes. They say the
public are responding favourably to the call for greater vigilance and cooperating fully with the new security arrangements for public transport.

The first explosion that took place in a bus on the A1 Colombo-Kandy highway near Nittambuwa (25 miles Colombo approx.) around 6.30 pm, Friday January
05, killed six persons, including a child and injured over 60 others.
 
The second that killed 11 and injured over 40 persons, took place inside a passenger bus at Godagama in the Meetiyagoda Police Division near the coastal town of Ambalangoda (50 miles approx. south of Colombo) nearly 20 hours later, around 2.35 p.m. Saturday, January 6, on the main A2 highway that links Colombo to the southern city of Matara. The victims of both
explosions were civilian passengers.

Following these explosions the Military Spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe called on the pubic to be extra cautious, observant and vigilant about similar attacks in public transport services and where the
public assemble in numbers for day to day activities. He said the LTTE was targeting civilians in desperation following many recent military setbacks, particularly in the East.  

The Military said that both explosions in the GAMPAHA district and the GALLE district pointed to LTTE terrorists wanting to cause a backlash in the South to divert the attention of the Government and the Security Forces from the East, following the many setbacks it suffered there.

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Last Updated Date: January 08, 2007 - 9.00GMT