From rxpgnews.com
Five cops suspended over Sri Lanka blast
By Xinhua,
Apr 4, 2007 - 3:13:29 PM
Colombo, April 4 - At least five policemen have been suspended over a bus bomb blast in Sri Lanka that killed 16 people, officials said Wednesday.
The five included a sergeant, three constables and a woman officer. They were suspended on charges of not taking proper checks that led to the explosion in a bus in the eastern district of Ampara Monday.
At least 26 people were injured. The government blamed the Tamil Tigers for the attack.
Asoka Udayanthi, the suspended female police officer, said she and her colleagues had carried out 'the orders from the top, so I can't understand why we should be suspended'.
The authorities say the police team had not carried out proper checks before the bus left the Ampara bus stand heading for the central province town of Badulla.
The state administrative officials in Ampara said that the government had approved the compensation of 100,000 Sri Lankan rupees - each in respect of the dead married adults.
Half that amount has been sanctioned for the unmarried dead.
Officials said the identification process of the dead had been completed and almost everyone was a resident of the eastern province.
Over 4,000 people have been killed in Sri Lanka since the end of 2005 when the new cycle of violence began in the over three-decade-old ethnic conflict.
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