Some 2,000 have been forced to close as the government campaigns against the consumption of products based on wheat flour, reported the BBC.

Wheat products are very popular in the country, but in recent days the government has been banning wheat products from various public institutions and they have also been taken out of government hospitals, and fast foods have been banned from schools.

It says this is because wheat is a foreign import, alien to an essentially rice-eating society and costly for its economy.

Opposition politicians like Sunil Handunetti accuse it of piling on the misery as food prices rise in general - and they object to the rhetoric the government is using.

"The cost of living is shooting up," he said.

"They've put up the milk powder price and increased the bread price four times. They even labelled bread-eaters as terrorists."