Sri Lanka Police Twitter account deleted after misidentifying female American Muslim as blast suspect

Sri Lankan police had been left red-faced after the wrong identification when the woman took the social media with a storm by her Facebook post.

On Thursday, police issued a flyer with the names and photos of six people -- three men and three women -- wanted in connection with attacks that killed over 250 people./ IMAGE: amara.maj/ Facebook

New Delhi: Hours after misidentifying an American activist as an Islamic State suspect behind Easter Sunday bombings, an official account of Sri Lanka police has been deleted. The account had misidentified an American human rights activist as a suspected Sri Lankan serial bomber, triggering a massive row on the social media . The account, @SriLankaPolice2, was deleted on Friday. Sri Lankan police had been left red-faced after the wrong identification when the woman took the social media with a storm by her Facebook post. On Thursday, police issued a flyer with the names and photos of six people -three men and three women - wanted in connection with attacks that killed over 250 people. Among those listed was a woman identified as Abdul Cader Fathima Khadhiya, accompanied by a photo of a woman in a headscarf purported to be the individual wanted for questioning. But the photo in fact showed Amara Majeed, an American Muslim whose parents are Sri Lankan immigrants and who penned an open letter to President Donald Trump in 2015 about his rhetoric on Muslims. Sri Lankan police replied with an apology for the "inconvenience." Majeed wrote on Facebook: "Hello everyone! I have this morning been FALSELY identified by the Sri Lankan government as one of the ISIS Easter attackers in Sri Lanka," Majeed wrote on her Facebook page." "What a thing to wake up to! This is obviously completely false and frankly, considering that Muslim communities are already greatly afflicted with issues of surveillance, I don't need more false accusations and scrutiny." Sri Lankan police on Thursday issued a statement confirming that the photo published alongside the name "Abdul Cader Fathima Khadhiya" was not in fact of the suspect. "The individual pictured is not wanted for questioning," the statement signed by police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said.