A 12-year-old girl died and several more were injured in an explosion inside a school van in Kurunegala about 90 km east of Colombo on Friday morning.
The school van was parked inside the garage of a house with schoolchildren inside when the explosion occurred. It was triggered when the driver turned the ignition on. The injured including the driver were taken to the Kurunegala Hospital.
The police and the military were quick to say that the blast was a result of personal enmity. The explosion was the first of its kind to have taken place in Sri Lanka after the war with the LTTE was declared over on May 19.
The Central Investigation Department (CID) immediately deployed a special team to look into the case, reports here said. A government-employed forensic expert also examined the site of the explosion. The Kurunegala police are conducting a separate investigation.