Education Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam today blamed former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa for the fire at Salawa army camp warehouse.

Speaking at a press conference today, he said that the weapons stored at the camp should have been transferred to a safe location after the war. The Rajapaksa government did not take any move to do so even though it governed the country for six years after the war had ended, Kariyawasam added.

Kariyawasam also refuted Rajapaksa's recent claim that he was preparing to move the weapons away to another place. If such a step was being planned, it should have been documented, he said.

He also said that similar events had occurred in Sri Lanka before but were kept under the wraps. An explosion took place in a weapons store in Vavuniya in 2009 and another incident took place in 2014, the minister said.