A burqa is a garment worn by some Muslim women that covers the entire body, including the face, with eyes over the eyes.
Sarath Weerasekera, the country’s public security minister, signed a bill on Friday approving the cabinet to ban the burqa for “national security” reasons.
“In our early days, Muslim women and girls never wore a burqa,” he told a news conference on Saturday. “It is a sign of religious extremism that has emerged recently. We will certainly ban it.”
In the days following the attacks, Sri Lanka’s intelligence services said they believed the suicide bombers had clear links to ISIS. The alleged mentor and leader, Zahran Hashim, was a radical Islamist preacher known to the authorities and the local Muslim community.
Later that year, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, best known for crushing a decades-long insurgency in the north of the country as secretary of defense, was elected president after vowing repression against extremism.
Rajapaksa is accused of widespread abuses of rights during the war, which he denies.
Weerasekera said the government intends to ban more than 1,000 Islamic madrassa schools that it said violate national education policy.
“No one can open a school and teach children what you want,” he said.