COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government has rejected calls by local Muslims for international assistance to investigate the massacre of 10 Muslim labourers in the eastern Ampara district that took place on Sunday.

The government reaction came after Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader Rauf Hakeem said he wanted investigations into the massacre to be carried out by the UN after some Muslim civilians initially blamed the government security forces for the killing.

The government said on Wednesday that statements recorded by the sole survivor of the killing made it clear that the massacre was carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamel Eelam (LTTE).

On Monday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to dispatch “a mission of inquiry into recent massacres and other atrocities in Sri Lanka.”

The group also urged the Sri Lankan government to accept the deployment of a United Nations human rights monitoring mission to areas of conflict.

The killing of 17 aid workers in the month of August in the eastern Muslim town of Muttur drew international attention to the need to investigate the heightened human rights violations, abductions and killings taking place in Sri Lanka.

“There is an urgent need for the international community to monitor the unfolding human rights situation, as these are not merely ceasefire violations, but grave breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, had reportedly said at the opening session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

However, a government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told the media that Sri Lanka had the expertise to carry out a full probe into Sunday’s killing and assured an impartial investigation.

The survivor of the massacre, now receiving treatment at the hospital had told the police that a group of Tamil Tiger rebels armed with firearms, knives and axes had killed his colleagues near the Anicut which they went to repair.