Vetted by NeuralPress's Multi-Agent Verifier for strict factual validity and event relevance. Our compliance engine cross-checks and filters search results to ensure zero false correlations or misleading content.
Primary Sources
2019 Easter Sunday attacks: Mastermind is Zahran: Gammanpila
Pivithuru Hela Urumaya Leader, Udaya Gammanpila, claimed that, according to his findings, the mastermind behind the Easter Sunday terror attacks on 21 April 2019 is the Islamist militant and founder of the National Thowheeth Jama’ath, Zahran Hashim.He asserted this yesterday (31) in Colombo during the launch of his book, Pasku Praharaye Mahamolakaru Soyayema (In Search of the Mastermind of the Easter Attacks). He rejected claims made by various parties, including the international media, that the bombings were planned to create a suitable political environment to bolster former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Presidential Election campaign.He detailed that Hashim, the person believed to have conducted a series of coordinated suicide attacks on churches and hotels that killed 269 people and injured approximately 500, had been a part of the Islamic State (IS), a transnational militant extremist group that acts with the aim of erasing modern international borders to unite the Muslim world under its authority. He added that although the attacks were planned to be launched at the last Randoli perahera (procession) in August 2021, Hashim launched the attack in April following commands by the Leader of the IS to take revenge on Christians after an incident in New Zealand.Gammanpila also alleged that Hashim had about 300 followers and nothing has been done to identify them or rehabilitate them.Meanwhile, Cabinet Spokesperson, Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa, responding to a question at the weekly Cabinet of Ministers media briefing yesterday, said that as the investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks moves in a certain direction, it is not surprising that various individuals and groups become unsettled. “As a person in the legal field and also as a former Parliamentarian, Gammanpila would have an understanding of this matter.However, if there is anything new in the book that is not already known to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), they will take steps to look into it”.
Easter Sunday carnage and the psychology of closure
But in the case of the Easter Sunday carnage, the situation is much more different. Despite many committees appointed to investigate on the deadly attacks, the mastermind has not yet been revealed.
Sri Lanka Christians prepare for Easter amid memories of deadly 2019 ...
Sri Lanka (MNN) - In Sri Lanka, Easter is a day mixed with both joy and sorrow ever since the 2019 Easter bombings that killed nearly 300 people and injured hundreds more. The coordinated attacks targeted churches and luxury hotels, carried out by Islamist extremists during Easter services. The ...
Search for Easter Sunday terror mastermind - The Island
The committee held former Senior DIG Ravi Seneviratne, who was in charge of the CID at the time of the Easter Sunday attacks, accountable for the CID's lapses that led to the carnage. President Dissanayake brought Seneviratne out of retirement and appointed him Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security.
