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A mosque in Sri Lanka was forced to abandon its Friday prayers after a group of Buddhists, including monks, held a demonstration demanding its demolition. A mosque official said that he and several dozen companions were trapped inside and feared the crowd would destroy the building, located in the central town of Dambulla . According to The BBC, the mosque had been targeted by a fire-bombing incident overnight, but no-one was hurt. Shortly after the protest carried out by a group of nearly 2000 Buddhists, the mosque was evacuated and its Friday prayers were cancelled. Many Buddhists in Sri Lanka regard Dambulla as a sacred town and in recent months there had been other sectarian tensions in this part of the country. Last year, a monk led a crowd to demolish a Muslim shrine in Anuradhapura , near Dambulla.

Sri Lankan mosque forced to abandon prayers by Buddhist protesters