Find our the truth behind this recurring viral message of terror attacks by food poisoning!

Following the Easter bombings in April 2019, there was a heightened sense of alert about iminent threats by extremist groups. This situation has been fueled by vira social media posts that have caused unwarranted panic among the public.

Here we investigated the veracity of a recurribg message, which had ccontinuously terrorized the netizens in Sri Lanka.

Social Media Posts :

Posts titled "Islamic extremist terrorists' next attack" were making the rounds with the below text.

“Be careful!

National intelligence is warning that the Islamic extremists are planning to launch the next attack of the Islamic extremists in a way that neither the security forces nor anyone expects.

Accordingly, the intelligence agencies have warned that their next attack will be to kill a large number of people at once by poisoning food.

Thus, there are between 500-1000 restaurants owned by extremists belonging to extremist Islamic churches and organizations all over the island and the plan is to sell highly toxic food to people from those restaurants one day at a time.

The fact that this could easily kill 10,000 - 50,000 people gives you an idea of ​​the severity of this attack.

Intelligence agencies have also warned that after this bio-terrorist attack, the owners of the respective terrorist restaurants will commit suicide.

This is revealed with the discovery of more than 100 kilograms of toxic chemicals in the coffee shop called "Coffee Beans Factory" located at No. 24, Old Mowers Road, belonging to Mohamed Ibrahim, who was involved in the Easter attack.

Thus, starting this morning, suspicious restaurants belonging to Muslim businessmen are being checked all over the island.

Please refrain from eating at restaurants owned by Muslim owners until confirmation from security.

We have learned as a nation that no person can be trusted based on the information we have experienced so far, and any sad message can be followed by the flames of extremism.

Please be careful.

You have a duty to protect other people's lives too...distribute in the name of humanity...😥🙏🙏🙏”

Facebook | Archived Link

Sinhalese version of this messages was also forwarded many times in among WhatsApp users in Sri Lanka.

Numerous individuals inquired about the veracity of these claims, so we decided to look into facts and context.

Fact Check :

At first we discovered that the posts had been circulating on social media ever since the Easter Sunday terror attacks in April 2019.Archived Link

This is how a few days following the 2019 Easter attack, these posts went viral on social media for the first time, at a time where anti-Muslim hatred messagea were heavily shared.

Along with the above message, a photo of a warning letter was also circulated.

It was reported that the President of the country at the time, Mr. Maithripala Sirisena, received a letter from the Archbishop of Colombo, His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, stating that violent attacks against churches would occurr once more between October 15 and October 25, 2019. As a result of this, in October 2019, Mr. Retired Major General J.R. Kulatunga wrote to Chief of Security requesting the implementation of a Safety program to ensure the security of churches and individuals at that time. Facebook | Archived Link

However, even in these instances the impending threat due to terrorist act by food poisoning was never mentioned, and investigations were carried out about the origins of such letter.

Since 2019, no such terror attack has been launched in Sri lanka until now, but due to the repeated circulation of these posts on social media, we have made an inquiry fr the parties linked to the security of the country.

Sri Lanka Police

Police Media Spokesman, Senior Superintendent of Police Mr. Nihal Talduwa said that these messages began to circulate on social media following the Easter attack, and no warning has been reported so far.

Ministry of Public Security

The media secretary of the Ministry of Public Security, Mr. Akila Tennakoon, also stated that the Ministry of Public Security has no confirmed reports regarding this type of message.

Ministry of Defence

According to the Ministry of Defense's media secretary, false information is being spread about an old social media post that has been reposted again.

Also Read : “ඉස්ලාම් අන්තවාදී ත්‍රස්තයන්ගේ මීළඟ ප්‍රහාරය” යනුවෙන් පළ වූ සටහන් වල ඇත්ත කතාව!

Also Read : ආහාර පිළියෙළ කිරීම සම්බන්ධව කුරාණයේ සඳහන්යැයි සංසරනය වන වෛරී සහගත, සාවද්‍ය පුවතක්

Conclusion :

Our investigation shows that posts circulating on social media about the ‘next attack by Islamic extremists’ are misleading. These posts have been circulating on social media since a few days after the Easter attack in 2019 and the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Defense confirm that no confirmed report has been received about this.