he failed to give a straight answer to the question ‘when will begin the removal process and said ‘in due course’. The Minister said that the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe had appointed a committee to investigate the location since there were protests demanding to remove the mosque from the Buddhist archaeological site in Kuragala since a long time.
He added, “The committee has assembled on April 21 and discussed with the Muslims of the mosque to relocate the mosque in another place since the report produced by the committee has proved that the mosque had been built in an ancient Buddhist Archaeological site.”
The Minister has agreed to provide funds one million rupees to reconstruct a mosque in another location. The Minister also added that all the other illegal constructions were also removed from the site long time ago.
Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) Chief Executive Officer, Dilantha Withanage said that there are already two mosques in the area and one is used by the villagers and other mosque is located out of human residence, which was decided to be cleared from the area. Withanage said, “Bodu Bala Sena has been asking it to be removed since the mosque was an illegal construction in the archaeological site.”