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Maj Gen Janaka Perera and his wife died in the blast in the north-central Anuradhapura town.

More than 65 people were injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside the United National Party (UNP) office near a bus depot, officials said.

Officials blamed the attack on separatist Tamil Tiger rebels.

Maj Gen Perera was the provincial leader of the country's main opposition party UNP.

"A suicide bomber went inside and exploded... Among the dead were Janaka Perera and his wife," news agency Reuters quoted senior police officer KPP Pathirana as saying.

Maj Gen Perera was one of Sri Lanka's most prominent army officers who held the command of the Tiger stronghold Jaffna peninsula in the mid-1990s.

The Tamil community accused him of being responsible for hundreds of deaths and the torture of Tamils in the region during the period.

The human rights group, Amnesty International, also raised similar concerns.

The Tamil Tiger rebels have been fighting for a separate homeland for a quarter of a century and about 70,000 people have been killed in the violence.

(BBC)

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