COLOMBO, Feb 5: Sri Lanka’s northeast came to a standstill on Saturday – the country’s independence day — in response to a call by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for a shutdown to protest ‘atrocities’ committed by the army.

And in the capital Colombo, independence day celebrations took place in a tense atmosphere as police stepped up security checks amid fears of suicide attacks.

Security was tightened following the arrest of several people in possession of explosives.

Police said they had detained a passenger carrying a hand grenade on a train running from Trincomalee to Colombo.

Last week the army claimed it had caught a man transporting nearly 900 pieces of an incendiary substance in a lorry from the northeastern town of Mannar to Colombo.