“My leader is Velupillai Prabhakaran, but my political model is Modi,” said the Tamil National Alliance MP form the Jaffna district, speaking to the New Indian Express on Friday.

Commenting on how the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Jaffna had inspired him, MP Sritharan said,

“it’s his clear thinking , sense of mission and his rise from the very bottom of the social ladder to the very top.”

Adding that India needed a stable Jaffna for its own security, Mr Sritharan said,

Members of the Sinhala group, Sinhala Ravaya, protested at Kurgala on Saturday, calling for the removal of a mosque it alleges was built on an ancient Buddhist site.

The group, which included Buddhist monks, clashed with police who deployed teargas against the protestors, as they attempted to reach the site according to reports.

“We wanted to ensure that artefacts are preserved," said one of the protesting monks. "We want to remove the mosque and place a Buddha statue at the site.”

Earlier this year, another Buddhist nationalist Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), threatened to destroy the mosque at Kuragala, in order to stop “these infidel Muslims” from running riot.