By P.K. Balachandran, IANS
Colombo : Security concerns made Sri Lankan mobile operators suspend their SMS services during the country’s 60th Independence Day celebrations Monday.
“We regret to inform subscribers that SMS services of all mobile operators will not be available from 6 a.m. to 12 noon on Feb 4,” said a message on all mobile phones here.
Sri Lankan military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said that he was not aware of the reasons for the suspension, but added that the mobile operators could have done it for security reasons.
Terrorists could use the SMS facility to communicate with each other without being noticed.
Meanwhile, the Reuters news agency bureau in Colombo received a phone call warning that there would be bomb blasts in several places in the capital city during the Independence Day celebrations. The caller said that he belonged to the Ellalan Force.
According to Nanayakkara, the Ellalan Force is a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) front organisation that carries out assassinations.
The celebrations this year are being held under the tightest security ever. Over 5,000 service and police personnel have been deployed. Several roads leading to the Galle Face Green, the venue of the main function, were closed. Troops fanned out to every nook and corner of Colombo and its suburbs, checking vehicles and examining the identity cards of pedestrians.
As bombs rocked Colombo, north and northwest Sri Lanka, killing scores of innocent men, women and children just ahead of Independence Day, President Mahinda Rajapaksa vowed to fight terrorism to the finish.
In his Independence Day message, he said that there was cause for satisfaction that the entire eastern province had been cleared of terrorism, and that moves to eradicate terrorism from the northern Tamil-speaking districts were underway “with good expectation of success”.