Minister of Construction Wimal Weerawansa has called on the government to ban all religious groups which have been in existence for less than 500 years.

Weerawansa, who is the leader of the National Freedom Front, a key partner in President Rajapaksa’s ruling coalition, said that such a ban on "sects and cults" would "end communal, religious and sectarian violence in the future", reported Ceylon Today.

"Until and unless the government takes steps to ban all those groups spreading extremism in the name of protecting the religion, this problem will not end. There are three or four main religions that people of this country have practised for at least 500 years,” Weerawansa said to Ceylon Today.

“Leaving aside all those traditionally practised religions, all other sects funded by America and Saudi Arabia and those who spread Mahayana Buddhism should be banned from the country."

The vast majority of Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese Buddhist follow the Theravada tradition of Buddhism, and not the Mahayana tradition, the most common Buddhist tradition around the world.

"With the end of war, the government is taking steps towards reconciliation, but this is the only shortcoming that happened on the part of the government. Unless groups like Thoufeek Jamath and other Christian and Buddhist groups are banned, fundamental groups will keep on mushrooming," the minister said.

Weerawansa said that only Buddhist extremism was being highlighted, while other religions were allowed to run free, accusing Muslim minister Rauff Hakeem of turning a blind eye to “Muslim extremism”.

"Everybody is blaming those so called Sinhala extremist groups, while cleverly mollycoddling the Muslim extremist groups. either types of extremism are not good for the country and what the government is attempting now is to defeat both. But, now both accuse the government of supporting the other. Muslim extremists accuse the government of supporting Sinhala extremists and vice versa. Truth is that the government is being targeted by both parties because it has nothing to do with either."

"Even Minister Rauff Hakeem is busy pointing a finger at Sinhala Buddhists but does not speak a word against those Muslim extremists operating with funds received from Saudi Arabia. This problem could not be solved without banning all sorts of extremist groups," he asserted.