Iran Press/Asia: Sri Lankan Police stated that a group of gunmen opened fire on a convoy of buses carrying minority Muslim voters in northwest Sri Lanka on Saturday, hours before polling in presidential elections got underway.
According to SBS News, there were no immediate reports of casualties, but a police official said the attackers had burnt tires on the road and set up makeshift roadblocks to ambush the convoy of more than 100 vehicles.
"The gunmen opened fire and also pelted stones," a police official in Tantirimale, 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Colombo said. "At least two buses were hit, but we have no reports of casualties."
Muslims from the coastal town of Puttalam were traveling to the neighboring district of Mannar, where they were registered to vote, the police official said.
About 16 million people are eligible to vote, with the ballot allowing voters to choose up to three candidates in order of preference. Votes will be counted soon after polling stations close but the results are not expected before Sunday.
Muslims who make up nearly 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s 22 million population, say they have faced hostility ever since the April attacks claimed by ISIS (Daesh) terrorists that killed more than 250 people.
That division has come on top of long-standing grievances of ethnic Tamils, who say they are still to get justice stemming from the human rights violations during a 26-year-civil-war in the country that ended in 2009.
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