The shrine, which is considered sacred to the Buddhists in Sri Lanka, houses the relic of the tooth of the Buddha and is a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site.

[1][2][3] It was attacked on 8 February 1989, allegedly by the armed cadres affiliated to Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a Marxist–Leninist political party in Sri Lanka.

[8] In 1987, neighboring India intervened in the conflict to bring an end to the fighting between the insurgents and the Sri Lankan armed forces.

[10] This suspicion was fuelled by the perceived threat of North-Eastern autonomy, due to the presence of IPKF in Sri Lanka.

[12][13] As the tension grew, JVP and its military wing, Patriotic People's Movement (Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya) launched attacks on various government and civilian targets.

In 2001, The Sunday Leader, a Sri Lankan English-language weekly, interviewed a former JVP member, Adhikari alias Kosala, who participated in the attack.

[16] According to Adhikari, the first meeting to plan the attack was held at the house of a JVP co-ordinator named Sunanda, in Kandy.

He believed that taking away the relic of the tooth of the Buddha, which had been residing in the country for at least 1,700 years,[17] would have made the people to rise up against the government which couldn't even protect the sacred property.

Adhikari's task was to bring the group to the Makara Thorana (the entrance to the Temple), where he would meet two gentlemen, who carried pens attached to their pockets, as an aid to recognition.

By this time, members of the group had arrived in the scene; snatched the guns hidden inside the flowers on the tray; and shot at the guards.