A consignment of kitchen apparels with printed images of Buddha, shipped from India, was today seized by Sri Lanka's customs authorities for hurting religious sentiments.
The stock of 5,424 sets of kitchen apparels, which included aprons, oven gloves and table serviettes, was seized from a container during the Customs checking on several other goods from India, Customs Spokesman Dharmasena Kahandawa said.
The stock was detected while the container was opened for unloading some other items in Sri Lanka, the Daily Mirror reported.
The shipment had arrived from Tuticorin few days ago and the ship was travelling to Slovenia, in the Central Europe via Sri Lanka.
The cargo arrived at the BQ4 warehouse of the Colombo Port on December 2 and the shipment arrived on SS St John Ark.
Kahandawa said investigations would be done and relevant actions would be taken by the Customs.
He said the Sri Lanka Customs would inform to the Indian Customs to conduct an inquiry and to stop such items that hurt the sentiments on any religion.
Nearly 70 percent of Sri Lanka's 21 million people are Buddhists and authorities are highly sensitive to perceived insults to the faith.
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