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Sri Lanka will ban the wearing of the burqa and shut more than 1,000 Islamic schools, the latest actions affecting the country’s minority Muslim population.

Reuters reports that the Minister for Public Security Sarath Weerasekera told a news conference on Saturday that he had signed a paper on Friday for cabinet approval to ban the burqa on “national security” grounds.

A “burqa” is an outer garment that covers the entire body and the face and is worn by some Muslim women.

“In our early days, Muslim women and girls never wore the burqa,” he said. “It is a sign of religious extremism that came about recently. We are definitely going to ban it.”

The wearing of the burqa in the majority-Buddhist nation was temporarily banned in 2019 after the bombing of churches and hotels by armed fighters that killed more than 250.

The move drew a mixed response, with activists saying the move “violated Muslim women’s right to practise their religion freely”.

Later that year, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, best known for crushing a decades-long insurgency in the north of the country as defence secretary, was elected president after promising a crackdown on extremism.

Rajapaksa is accused of widespread rights abuses during the war, charges he denies.

Weerasekera said the government plans to ban more than 1,000 Islamic schools that he said were flouting national education policy.

“Nobody can open a school and teach whatever you want to the children,” he said.

The government’s moves on burqas and schools follow an order last year mandating the cremation of COVID-19 victims – against the wishes of Muslims, who bury their dead.

This ban was lifted earlier this year after criticism from the United States and international rights groups.

Six miners have been killed in a blast at a coal mine in southwestern Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, officials said on Friday.

They were among eight miners trapped about 1,000 feet underground when accumulating methane gas exploded at the coalfield in Marwar in the province of Balochistan, the officials said.

“Six bodies have been retrieved by the rescue team from the affected mine this morning,” a senior official of the directorate of mines said.

“(The) mine has been closed and an inquiry has been ordered by the Chief Inspector of Mines into the incident.”

A heavy boulder had fallen on eight miners on Thursday afternoon, local rescue official Imdad Khan said.

Two injured workers were extracted from the mine after several hours of rescue operations.

In the past year, 102 coal miners have been killed in Balochistan in 72 different incidents, Sultan Muhammad Lala, president of the Balochistan Coal Mines Workers Federation, told Reuters.

Lala said the government and mine owners were not ensuring safe working conditions at the sites.

Mining is thought to be one of the most dangerous jobs in Pakistan due to low safety standards and bad working conditions.

An explosion caused by methane gas at another coal mine in Marwar of May 2018 killed 20 workers.

In August that year, another methane-fuelled explosion in the city of Quetta killed seven.

In 2011, 45 coal miners were killed by a methane gas explosion, also in Balochistan.

Sparsely populated and impoverished Balochistan is home to large deposits of coal, natural gas, copper and gold, many of which are being extracted by Chinese-backed operations.

Baloch separatist fighters often target workers and security forces.