Religious extremism and terrorism pose a threat to the region, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said, adding "coordinated efforts" are needed to tackle these challenges. His remark came days after a Sri Lankan national was lynched by an extremist mob of Islamic fanatics in Pakistan. 

Speaking at the inaugural session of the Indian Ocean Conference being held in Abu Dhabi, Rajapaksa said, “Extremism and terrorist ideology can spread with ease from nation to nation unless carefully monitored and suppressed.” These threats, he added, need to be countered through “coordination” and “cooperation” by the countries in the region. 

Rajapaksa's remark is also significant in the backdrop of the Taliban’s return in Afghanistan. At the same conference, Rohan Gunaratne, a senior advisor to the Sri Lankan government, also linked the lynching incident with the Taliban's return.

Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana, a Sri Lankan national who was working as an export manager in Rajco Industries in Pakistan, was on Friday first brutally assaulted by an Islamist mob of over a thousand people, then burnt alive to death in full public. 

“The lynching and burning of the Sri Lankan is a clear reflection of the spread of Salafi Wahhabism in the region. And it’s a cancerous ideology that has to be contained, isolated and eliminated,” Gunaratna, who is the director-general of the Sri Lankan military think tank, the Institute of National Security Studies, was quoted as saying by The Hindu newspaper. 

Radical and terrorist groups across the globe are emboldened by the Taliban victory in Afghanistan, he said.

Although the Sri Lanka government has expressed faith and confidence in Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's assurance for actions in the incident, leaders of the country haven’t failed to mention the key underlying issue: religious extremism. 

Namal Rajapaksa, Sri Lankan Cabinet Minister for Youth And Sports, on Saturday said in a tweet, “We should be mindful that this could happen to anyone if extremist forces are allowed to act freely” — a veiled reference to the rampant rise of extremism in Pakistani society. 

Speaking at the conference, President Rajapaksa also highlighted drug smuggling, criminal networks, human trafficking among other challenges in the Indian Ocean Region. He further added that it could “only effectively be dismantled through coordinated efforts between the intelligence services, Coast Guards and Navies of regional countries.  

(SAM)