5 JDS workers among dead in Sri Lanka blasts, 2 missing

Bengaluru: Seven JD(S) workers who travelled to Sri Lanka on a vacation on April 20 were missing after the serial blasts in the country. Among them two members, KG Hanumantharayappa and Rangappa are dead, confirmed the tweet by external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. They were staying at Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo, where a bomb went off on April 21.

Apart from the two, reports state that JDS workers Ramesh, Laxmi Narayan and Shivakumar are also dead. Puttaraju and Maregowda, also JDS workers, are still missing.

The death toll of the bomb blasts in Sri Lanka has now reached 290.

Expressing the shock over the incident, JDS leader and chief minister Kumaraswamy said, "I am shocked to hear that a seven-member team of JDS workers from Karnataka who were touring Colombo has gone missing after the bomb blasts in Colombo. Two of them are feared killed in the terror strike. I am in constant touch with the Indian High Commission on the reports of those missing."

The seven-members team had left for a vacation after campaigning for Congress leader Veerappa Moily, alliance candidate from Chikkaballapura Lok Sabha constituency.