Sri Lanka authorities releases photographs of six suspects of the Easter Sunday attack

Guwahati: Sri Lanka released photographs of six suspects including three women involved in the deadly attack in the serial bomb blasts in its capital on Easter Sunday which killed nearly 300 people and around 500 injured taking the number of those under custody to 76.

Sri Lanka police on Thursday night released the names and pictures of three men and three women and sought information regarding them from the public. It is believed that nine suicide are the members of local Islamist extremist group called National Thowheed Jamath who carried has carried out the devastating serial blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels in the Sri Lankan capital on Easter Sunday.

The officials earlier said that the total number of suspects under police custody has risen to 76 with the arrest of 16 more people on Wednesday.

Police interrogated the arrested people at length by the investigation sleuths in connection with the bombings.

However, many of the arrested people have suspected links to the National Thowheed Jamath but they have not claimed responsibility for the blasts that took place on Easter Sunday. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks and identified suicide bombers who carried out the devastating blasts.

The Sri Lankan authorities have deployed thousands of troops to help police to carry out search operations and over 5000 army personnel have been deployed around the country.

Military spokesperson Brigadier Sumith Atapattu said that during the last 24 hours there have been no major incidents and that they have deployed over 6,300 troops which includes 1000 from the Airforce and 600 from the Navy.

Meanwhile, a minor explosion happened behind the magistrate's court at Pugoda, the western province town in the 40kms north of Colombo.

According to police, the blast which occurred at Pugoda behind magistrate's court occurred in a garbage dump and that there were no injuries and a probe has been launched to ascertain the cause.

The newly-enforced emergency regulations have facilitated the search operations of suspected properties, arrests and detention of people and to place roadblocks for such operations and it has been adopted without a vote in Parliament on Wednesday.

However, the head of the local Catholic church, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith has asked all the churches to stop masses until the situation improved.

Also Read: Seven people arrested accused in the Srilanka serial bomb blasts