COLOMBO 23 Apr (ANA) - Sri Lanka has held its first mass funeral as the country marks a day of mourning for the victims of Sunday's bomb blasts.

 

The death toll from the attacks on churches and hotels has risen to 321 with about 500 wounded, police said.

 

The country has observed three minutes of silence and a state of emergency is in effect to prevent further attacks.

 

Sri Lanka's government has blamed the blasts on local Islamist group National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ).

 

Police have now detained 40 suspects in connection with the attack. A spokesman said they included a Syrian who was arrested "after the interrogation of local suspects".

 

Defence minister Ruwan Wijewardene told parliament on Tuesday that "preliminary investigations" indicated the bombings were in retaliation for deadly attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March. He did not give any details.

 

Mr Wijewardene also said NTJ was linked to another radical Islamist group he named as JMI, but again he provided no further information.

 

Meanwhile, police in Colombo have been placed on high alert and told to search for a lorry and a van suspected to be carrying explosives, BBC Sinhala's Azzam Ameen said.

 

The mass funeral for about 30 victims took place at St Sebastian church in Negombo, north of Colombo, which was one of the places targeted in Sunday's blasts. Another funeral service was scheduled for later on Tuesday.

 

Earlier, a moment of silence was observed at 08:30, reflecting the time the first of six bombs detonated. Flags were lowered to half-mast and people, many of them in tears, bowed their heads in respect.

 

The state of emergency gives police and the military sweeping powers to detain and interrogate suspects without court orders - powers that were last used during the nation's civil war.

 

The government limited access to Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram after the blasts.

 

NTJ, the group named by the government as the main suspect, has no history of large-scale attacks but came to prominence last year when it was blamed for damaging Buddhist statues.

 

However, neither NTJ nor any other group has admitted carrying out Sunday's bombings.

 

Sunday's attacks have highlighted rifts in Sri Lanka's leadership, after it emerged that authorities were warned about an imminent threat.

 

Security agencies had been watching the NTJ jihadist group, reports said, and had notified police about a possible attack.

 

But Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the cabinet were not informed, ministers said.

 

Cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said the information was not passed to Mr Wickremesinghe due to a rift between the prime minister and President Maithripala Sirisena.

 

However, it was not clear on Monday whether Mr Sirisena had been made aware of the warnings.

 

"Our understanding is that it was correctly circulated among security and police," Shiral Lakthilaka, a senior adviser to Mr Sirisena, told the BBC.

 

He said that the president had appointed a special committee led by a supreme court judge to investigate what had happened.(ANA)

FA/ANA/23 April 2019------