Indian Bollywood stars rushed home after their sell-out "Temp-tation 2004" concert ended in tragedy following a grenade attack that killed two people, officials said yesterday.
Detectives yesterday sealed off Colombo's former Race Course, where Hindi super star Shahrukh Khan entertained more than 20,000 fans, and began looking for clues to find out who was responsible for the attack.
At least 19 people, including several children, were wounded in the Saturday night attack, doctors said.
Top police investigator Sarath Lugoda said they had no suspects yet. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Khan was on stage when the explosion went off, but security guards whisked him away and drove the entire entourage straight to the airport hours ahead of their planned departure yesterday, organizers said.
The Sunday Times newspaper, one of the co-sponsors of the concert which was billed as Sri Lanka's top musical event of the year, said Khan did not know what had happened.
"Initially, not knowing what had happened, Shahrukh Khan continued until lights were switched off and he was escorted off the stage," the Sunday Times said.
Arriving in Mumbay, Khan told reporters there that he did not believe the attack had anything to do with the protests by Buddhist monks earlier in the day against his show.
"It [the blast] had nothing to do with that," Khan said, referring to protests against the concert because it coincided with the first death anniversary of a popular monk.
Khan started his show by observing a minute silence in honor of the memory of monk Gangodawila Soma who died a year ago.
The monks called off their protest several hours before the show started, but supporters of the monks later attacked cars and concert-goers and clashed with police who retaliated with teargas, water cannons and rubber bullets.
One monk and several others were injured, police said.
Khan's co-star Preity Zinta said in Mumbay that the performers were unaffected by the blast.
"We are all safe, it was very nice to go there," she said.
However, an Indian woman identified as Rithu Shastri, the wife of former Indian cricket idol Ravi Shastri, was wounded and taken to a private hospital, where doctors said they treated her for minor injuries.
A hotel employee and a press photographer were killed instantly in the blast while 18 bystanders, including children, were taken to the emergency room of the Colombo National Hospital.
The blast came despite tight security. Fans were searched at four points before being allowed into the venue which had earlier been inspected by anti-terrorism agents and police sniffer dogs.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
‘NO WORKABLE SOLUTION’: An official said Pakistan engaged in the spirit of peace, but Kabul continued its ‘unabated support to terrorists opposed to Pakistan’ Pakistan yesterday said that negotiations for a lasting truce with Afghanistan had “failed to bring about a workable solution,” warning that it would take steps to protect its people. Pakistan and Afghanistan have been holding negotiations in Istanbul, Turkey, aimed at securing peace after the South Asian neighbors’ deadliest border clashes in years. The violence, which killed more than 70 people and wounded hundreds, erupted following explosions in Kabul on Oct. 9 that the Taliban authorities blamed on Pakistan. “Regrettably, the Afghan side gave no assurances, kept deviating from the core issue and resorted to blame game, deflection and ruses,” Pakistani Minister of
UNCERTAIN TOLLS: Images on social media showed small protests that escalated, with reports of police shooting live rounds as polling stations were targeted Tanzania yesterday was on lockdown with a communications blackout, a day after elections turned into violent chaos with unconfirmed reports of many dead. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan had sought to solidify her position and silence criticism within her party in the virtually uncontested polls, with the main challengers either jailed or disqualified. In the run-up, rights groups condemned a “wave of terror” in the east African nation, which has seen a string of high-profile abductions that ramped up in the final days. A heavy security presence on Wednesday failed to deter hundreds protesting in economic hub Dar es Salaam and elsewhere, some
RSS