12 military men among 19 injured in Sri Lanka bus explosion

A pre-dawn explosion on a bus in Sri Lanka on Wednesday injured 19 people, including 12 defence personnel, the military said, rekindling scenes of the island nation's brutal civil war against the LTTE. The cause of the explosion that took place around 5.45 am was not immediately known, amid suspicion that somebody was carrying a grenade on the bus that went off.

"Among the passengers were seven Army personnel and five Air Force personnel. The condition of two Army personnel is reportedly critical," the Army said in a statement. The injured which included seven civilians have been hospitalised.

"The Army denies any terrorist involvement in the incident. Police investigations are in progress," it said. The bus had started from the northern peninsula of Jaffna for the military base town of Diyathalawa. The explosion occurred at Kahagolla area in Diyathalawa, military spokesman Brigadier Sumith Atapattu said. However, Daily Mirror newspaper quoting the spokesman said "the explosion cannot be ruled out as an act of terrorism as of yet. Nevertheless, a highly explosive substance inside the bus may have caused the explosion. The cause can be ruled out after the government analyst inspects the scene."

Atapattu said the police and the military are conducting separate investigations. Sri Lanka saw a brutal civil war involving the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and had witnessed large scale violence during the 30-year-long separatist movement that claimed over 100,000 lives. Hundreds of security personnel were also killed in the fight till 2009, when the LTTE was finally crushed by the Lankan military with the death of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran. There have been hardly any reports of attacks on the military ever since.

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