Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe vowed that the UNP-led UNFGG would do "its utmost to preserve Theravada Buddhism", while speaking to monks at a conference in Battaramulla.

The prime minister pledged to set up a "dhamma council" to resolve issues affecting Buddhism.

The Sri Lankan president has ordered the Presidential Security Division (PSD) to step down due to reports it may have been involved with murders, and has instead chosen to replace it with the Special Task Force (STF).

Economy Next reports a government official as saying "the PSD will be completely replaced by the STF", due to links to high-profile murders, including that of a rugby player in 2012.

"The process is taking place as we speak,” said the official. “It will be completed in the next 48 hours".

The unit is to however be replaced by Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force, an infamous elite unit that has also been linked to massacres of Tamils and egregious human rights abuses.

The STF is accused of conducting numerous massacres including the killing of five students in Trincomalee in 2006 and the massacre of 17 aid workers of the French NGO Action Contre La Faim (ACF) in the same year. Reports of killings stretch even further back with STF officers also accused of killing 83 Tamils in Kokkadichcholai on January 27 1987.

No member of the STF has ever been prosecuted for any of the killings.

The Sri Lankan army declared open a Buddhist vihara that it constructed in the Tamil North-East last week, proclaimed an official military website.

Sri Lankan troops from the 661 brigade constructed the Buddhist vihara in Pooneryn (Poonakari), where Buddhist monks and soldiers held a religious ceremony at the opening on the 29 July.

“Financial contributions” from the 661 brigade and troops from other divisions were also involved in the construction, according to the Sri Lankan army.

The Federation of National Organisations (FNO), a collective of Sinhala political organisations, businesses and civil society groups based in the south, has urged Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and former president Mahinda Rajapaksa to explain their positions on India’s plans to build a road link between Tamil Nadu and the Tamil-dominated North-East of the island.

Speaking to media at the Abayaramaya Buddhist temple, co-chairman of the group Dr Gunadasa Amarasekara called on the candidates to reveal their positions before the elections on August 17, The Island reported.

Dr Amarasekara said the proposed bridge was the “biggest challenge” Sri Lanka would face as it would “heavily damage the territorial integrity” of the island, as some powers were trying to “annex” Sri Lanka to India through the bridge.

The co-chairman warned that if the bridge was built, Sri Lanka would not be able to be considered a separate country or an island, as it would become part of India.