Sri Lanka’s new President Anura Kumar Dissanayake said on Tuesday that he would reopen an investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks. Dissanayake took office on September 22 after winning the presidential election held in Sri Lanka on September 21. He made the remarks during a courtesy call on Cardinal Malcolm Ranjit, chief of the Catholic Church, after taking office as president.
“The new president assures us that the truth about the Easter Sunday attacks will be revealed,” said Cardinal Ranjit, who has been investigating attacks on star hotels and churches on Easter Sunday. Critics said the attack killed 269 people, including foreign tourists. Ranjith blamed former presidents Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe and described the investigation into the Easter Sunday attacks as a politicized cover-up.
He said the attacks were carried out by the local jihadist group National Tahid Jamaat (NTJ). Under pressure from the church, former President Maithripala Sirisena appointed a high-level commission of inquiry. Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has ordered President Maithripala Sirisena to pay 100 million Sri Lankan rupees (INR 27,443,756) to victims as compensation for his negligence in preventing one of the country’s worst terror attacks. compensation, despite the fact that he had ordered reliable information about an impending attack. .
Easter Sunday terror attacks kill 269
Senior security officials were also found guilty of criminal negligence for ignoring previous intelligence warnings from India. Easter in 2019 is April 21st. On this day, suicide bombings occurred in three churches and three luxury hotels in the capital Colombo in Sri Lanka. On the same day, two small explosions occurred at a residential complex in Dematagorda and a hotel in Dehiwala. This series of terrorist bombings killed a total of 269 people, including 45 foreigners, 11 Indian citizens and 3 policemen. About 500 people were injured. Eight suicide bombers linked to the Islamic State carried out the bombings.
