A Sri Lankan cabinet minister said Friday the US is “nurturing and fostering” Muslim militant groups and creating another Taliban in the island by heeding Muslim accounts of the Buddhist mob violence against them, the Daily Mirror reported.

Champika Ranawaka, Minister for Technology, Research and Atomic Energy, told reporters that US Ambassador Michelle Sison is nurturing “Sri Lankan Jihadist groups” just as the US nurtured the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“The US is repeating the mistakes it made in Afghanistan by distorting the Aluthgama incidents and very soon will suffer dire consequences,” said Ranawaka, whose Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) party is a key ally of President Rajapaksa’s UPFA coalition.

The University of Jaffna's Muslim prayer room was vandalised after staff and students protested on Thursday against anti-Muslim violence in Aluthgama.

The University Student Union released a statement on Friday, condemning the incident, in which the prayer room was defaced with oil waste.

Pointing out the Sri Lankan chauvinism suffered by Tamils and now Muslims, the Union stated that the vandalism was "unacceptable" within a civilised institution and also declared that the Union would continue to stand against assaults on minorities.

The Sri Lankan minister Mervyn Silva told media during a local government meeting in Kelaniya that he would marry a Muslim girl, even if his wife was against it, News1st reported.

Silva was lamenting that Muslims will not “give us any of theirs in marriage”, although Sinhalese girls are taken by Muslims.

He added that if his family reprimanded him, he would be able to “clash” with his Muslim wife, who would have her “face covered”.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa condemned the arrest of 46 fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy on Wednesday, in another letter to President Narendra Modi.

The Chief Minister urged the Indian premier to secure the immediate release of the men and their boats, according to The Hindu.

“It deeply pains me to have to write to you yet again, bringing to your notice two separate incidents in which 46 Indian fishermen along with 11 boats from Tamil Nadu have been apprehended by the Sri Lankan Navy”, she wrote.

Photographs: Save Tamils Movement

Hundreds of protestors demonstrated outside the Sri Lankan High Commission in Chennai this week, condemning the attack on Muslims by Sinhala mobs in the southern Sri Lankan town of Aluthgama.

Over 400 people were outside the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission in Nungambakkam, Chennai condemning the attacks and calling on the Indian government to intervene and put and end to repeated attacks by Sinhala nationalists.

Leaders from the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazagham and Thirumavalavan from the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi were amongst those that addressed the protestors, who were joined by activists from the Save Tamils Movement.

More than 1,000 Muslim-owned businesses were shut for the day in the southern Sri Lankan capital of Colombo, as shop owners protested against the attacks on Muslims by Sinhala mobs on the island.

Ibrahim Nisthar Miflal, president of the Muslims Rights Organization, told the Associated Press that the closure was in protest at the lack of response by the government to apprehend those behind the attacks, which saw at least 3 people killed and dozens injured.

The president of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has condmned tha attacls on Muslims by Sinhalese mobs in southern Sri Lanka and called on the Indian government to voice concern over the violence.

In a statement issued this week, DMK chief M Karunanidhi said,

"After the genocidal attacks on Tamils in Sri Lanka, Muslims are being attacked now and Centre and state government should come forward to voice concern for their safety."

Muslims in Sri Lanka called on the United Nations to intervene and investigate the ongoing violence in the island after Sinhala mobs attacked Muslim businesses and homes, reports Colombo Page.

The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader Rauf Hakeem, yesterday, invited the United Nations special rapporteurs on Minority Issues and Religious Freedom to visit Sri Lanka for an investigation into the deteriorating rights situation in Sri Lanka.