Sri Lanka’s Geneva Conventions Act (2006) includes the “taking of hostages”, a grave breach of the 1949 Geneva Convention IV, as an indictable offence. 

In 2009, in its combined third and fourth periodic reports to the Committee against Torture, Sri Lanka stated: “Recently arrests of two gangs involved in abduction for ransom in the Eastern Province contributed to a cessation of such incidents, though the need for constant vigilance continues in the context of terrorism and its aftermath.”