COLOMBO, Dec 7 (Reuters) Police slapped curfew on a town in Sri Lankas tense central hills today to Quell riots over the killing of 12 supporters of an opposition Muslim party in recent parliamentary elections.
Mobs set ablaze a petrol station near Madawala town, which was turned into a tinder-box by Wednesdays killings, blamed on majority sinhalese gunmen supporting the ruling Peoples Alliance (PA).
"Police and paramilitary units have been moved into the area and the curfew will be in force indefinitely," a senior military official said.
The unrest erupted just after the government lifted a 36-hour islandwide curfew meant to defuse tension between sinhalese and muslims who rioted in central Sri Lanka this year.
An estimated 7,000 mourners defied curfew to bury nine of those killed in a single attack in Madawala after voting closed.
"They were killed by pa thugs while escorting a ballot box," one mourner, M Y Asheef, told Reuters television.
"It was a premeditated attack." The other three victims, also supporters of the opposition Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, were killed elsewhere in the central Kandy district, which saw massive violence and ballot-box stuffing on election day.
The Congress is allied to the main opposition united national party which has taken a virtually unassailable lead even though counting has been delayed by the abuses and polling annulled in several areas.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga ordered an immediate investiga-tion into the killings which took the death toll from a violent election campaign to almost 60.
Sri Lanka has been wracked by an 18-year ethnic war pitting sinhalese against the larger tamil minority, but clashes involving Muslims are rare.