An official Sri Lanka Police Twitter account has been deleted after it caused a social media furore by misidentifying an American woman as a suspect in the Easter Sunday bombings.
Police circulated the names and photos of six people they said were at-large suspects in the Easter Sunday attacks that killed 253 people and injured hundreds more.
Amara Majeed, a Baltimore-based Muslim activist and author, posted on social media that a photograph of her had been wrongly included as one of the suspects.
"I have this morning been FALSELY identified by the Sri Lankan Government as one of the ISIS Easter attackers in Sri Lanka," she posted on Facebook.
"What a thing to wake up to!"
Ms Majeed called the implications "false" and called on Sri Lankan police to correct the error.
"Considering that Muslim communities are already greatly afflicted with issues of surveillance, I don't need more false accusations and scrutiny," she wrote.
"Please stop implicating and associating me with these horrific attacks. And next time, be more diligent about releasing such information that has the potential to deeply violate someone's family and community."
Her posts on Facebook and Twitter garnered thousands of comments, shares and likes.
Ms Majeed, whose parents are from Sri Lanka, had previously self-published a book called The Foreigners to help combat stereotypes about Muslims.
She is also a founder of The Hijab Project, an organisation that aims to empower Muslim women in the United States.
Sri Lankan police later posted a correction on Twitter, confirming the one of the images purporting to be of Abdul Cader Fathima Khadhiya, who is still being sought by authorities, was in fact of another woman — Ms Majeed.
It clarified Ms Majeed was not wanted for questioning, and also apologised for the "inconvenience".
The account, SriLankaPolice2, was subsequently deleted on Friday.
Ms Majeed later asked her followers to keep Sri Lanka in their prayers, tweeting: "The heart is where the homeland is. My beautiful Sri Lanka."
ABC/wires
