Nearly three decades after the world famous Jaffna library was burnt, a Sri Lankan minister has apologised for the incident which destroyed around 97,000 books and manuscripts, including many on Tamil culture.
“Thirty years back this library was set on fire by the goondas and caused indescribable loss not only to Jaffna but to the whole country,” power and energy minister Patali Champika Ranawake said.
“I have come to apologise for that dastardly act and beg the pardon of the Tamil community,” Mr Ranawake said at a function in the library auditorium in Jaffna on Wednesday. “The small gift of books I am presenting to the library would go a long way to remove the scars of the wounds suffered by our Tamil brethren,” the Buddhist Jathika Hela Urumaya party member said.
Jaffna mayor Y. Patkunarajah presided over the function. The burning of the Jaffna library is considered an important event in the Sri Lankan civil war. An organised mob went on a rampage on the nights of May 31 to June 2, 1981, burning the library.
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‘Madrasas in Pak do not pose risk’
Islamabad, June 24: Islamic schools — or madrasas — in Pakistan are not stoking militancy or extremism, a report by a leading US think-tank has concluded.
The Brookings Institution report says that while religious schools are often cited as a cause of extremism, they “appear not to be a major risk factor”, reported the BBC.
The report says that fewer than 10 per cent of Pakistani students attended madrasas. The report also says that the real cause of militancy in the country is the poor public education system. Report co-author Rebecca Winthrop, a Brookings fellow, said that number of militant madrasas was not increasing, reports our Pakistan correspondent.