Director General of Health Services, Dr. Anil Jasinghe in a statement today said that death toll of last Sunday's attacks stands at 253, not 359 as earlier reported by the media.
Authorities have said that deaths resulting from Easter Sunday's bombings in Sri Lanka are not as high as initially thought. The original death toll was thought to be around 359.
As reported by The Hidu @the_hindu, “Dr. Anil Jasinghe, the Director-General of the Health Services, said the larger death toll was released as a result of a calculation error. “The approximate total of the dead would be 253 and not 359 as reported in media,” he said.
The health ministry has explained that the reason for the incorrect number of dead was because certain bodies had been badly mutilated and they had been counted twice.
There has been other inconsistencies in the government announcement. For example, bombers identified earlier as NTJ were later changed to a splinter group. A picture of a suspect was released then revoked because it turned out to be a random American girl.
Amara Majeed’s picture appeared erroneously alongside the name Abdul Cader Fatima Kadiya, named by Police as suspect in the has issued a statement rejecting any involvement.
Police later issued a statement saying image is incorrect.
In a statement published on Sri Lanka’s official news portal News.LK, Gov urged the General Public and media to accept only the official news confirmed by the Department of Government Information, Police Media Spokesman or three force Media Spokesmen. See http://www.ummnews.biz/node/9175
