Hakeem briefs SLMC on attack

Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) Leader Rauf Hakeem has briefed party members on the Grandpass mosque issue, an SLMC spokesman said.
The spokesman told the Colombo Gazette that Hakeem had briefed party members for nearly three hours last night including on the investigations being carried out by the police.
He had told the party that the police had begun using CCTV footage to identify those responsible for the attack on the temporary mosque at Grandpass last Saturday.
Hakeem had said that the police has taken a lot of interest on the issue particularly after the attack was widely condemned including by the US government.
A solution had been reached on the Grandpass mosque issue on Sunday following more than three hours of heated deliberations at the Ministry of Buddha Sasana and Religious Affairs.
It was decided at the meeting that the temporary mosque at Swarna Chaitiya road in Grandpass will be vacated and an old mosque in the area, which was earlier going to be demolished for development purposes, will remain.
The land area for the old mosque has also been expanded by cutting down a Bo-tree located next to it.?Muslim religious leaders had conducted prayers at the temporary location until the old mosque was relocated.?(Colombo Gazette)
Report by Easwaran Rutnam