July 04, Colombo: The period granted for armed groups in the Eastern Province to hand over their weapons ended at 3:00 p.m. today.

The police and the security forces had been tasked to take tough action against persons and armed groups that failed to respond to the police directive to hand over their weapons, the police said.

The Police declared a relief period to handover weapons on June 19th of last month. It later extended the deadline to July 04th.

Reportedly 18 armed groups have been identified in the Eastern Province and these groups are reported to be holding more than 400 firearms.