Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya Rajpakasa paid a “surprise visit” to the Kuragala Sinhala Buddhist site last week as a restoration project gets underway, whilst a nearby Islamic site remains under threat.

“Army troops made up the major share of the manpower for this gigantic task,” declared an official military website, which published photographs of Rajapaksa’s tour.

Rajapaksa visited Kuragala alongside Sri Lanka’s army chief Shavendra Silva. Both men are credibly accused of war crimes.

A Sri Lankan military helicopter flew overhead and dropped flower petals across the site, as both officials made offerings. Dozens of Buddhist monks were also in attendance.

Meanwhile, a nearby Islamic site remains under threat.

In 2013, the Sinhala Buddhist extremist group Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) called for the removal of the mosque in Kuragala, claiming that “Muslim fundamentalists” have taken over the site and destroyed historical evidence of the area’s Buddhist heritage. Two years later, the general secretary of the BBS, Galagodaaththe Gnanasara said the organisation would invade Kuragala and dismantle the mosque “brick by brick”.

In 2015, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Arts and Culture Nandimitra Ekanayake said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed a committee to investigate the location, which then established that the mosque sat on a Buddhist archaeological site.

The issue has continued to raise ire from Sinhala Buddhist extremists with the Daily News publishing an article last year which claimed “the Mosque administration is carried out by a Trust and they have changed the history of Kuragala and are engaged in an attempt to mislead not only this country but people worldwide”.

“For this purpose they have re-created a false stone inscription,” the article continued. “These extremists spread stories which have absolutely no source.”