Sri Lanka Police Crack Down on Tamil Guerrillas

Police detained more than 1,500 Tamils on Friday after raids on suspected guerrilla hide-outs and arrested two Tamil rebels who officials said were planning attacks in a town with an important Buddhist temple.

At least 329 Tamils were released after police questioned, photographed and fingerprinted them, senior police and army officers said. The rest were still being questioned.

Police said some of those detained might be suicide bombers.

Two rebels armed with two bombs were picked up in Amparai, eastern Sri Lanka’s Tamil-dominated main town, before they could board a bus for the Buddhist temple town of Kandy, said H.R. Senaviratne, assistant superintendent of police.

The guerrillas said they planned to attack bus stations in Kandy, according to Senaviratne. A temple there, bombed by rebels several years ago, holds what the majority Buddhist Sinhalese believe is a tooth relic of Buddha.

Friday’s crackdown came a day after police arrested the parents and a sister of a woman who blew herself up outside the office of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Fifty people have died in three suicide bombings since Dec. 18. The prime minister’s daughter, President Chandrika Kumaratunga, suffered a serious eye injury in one of the attacks.

Authorities lifted an overnight curfew imposed on the capital, Colombo, and some of its suburbs shortly after noon Friday to allow Muslims to offer prayers ahead of the annual Eid al-Fitr celebration marking the end of Ramadan.

The curfew was imposed around midnight Thursday for police to carry out door-to-door searches for suspected Tamil guerrillas who belong to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.