Published By: Pragati Pal
Last Updated: September 06, 2023, 20:46 IST
Sri Lankan Catholics priests stand at the entrance of St. Anthony’s church, one of the sites of the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, on the first anniversary of the deadly bombings in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, April 21, 2020. (AP file photo)
The Minister of Labour and Foreign Employment, Manusha Nanayakkara, told Parliament on Tuesday that the Cabinet decided to appoint a special Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to probe into the allegations made by the UK’s Channel 4 programme
The Sri Lankan government will investigate the allegations by a British television channel calling the 2019 Easter suicide bombings that killed nearly 270 people a “crafted act” to force a political change in favour of the Rajapaksa brothers.
UK’s Channel 4 television station on Tuesday aired a documentary titled ‘Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings – Dispatches’ making serious revelations about the 2019 Easter suicide bombings, the news portal themorning.lk reported.
It alleged the involvement and complicity of certain government officials in orchestrating the terror attacks and called the attacks a “crafted act” aimed at forcing a political change in favour of the Rajapaksa brothers.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who announced his candidature three days after the attacks, was elected president seven months later. His elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was also the country’s former president and prime minister.
Both Rajapaksa brothers were forced to resign last year amidst the unprecedented economic crisis in the island nation.
The Minister of Labour and Foreign Employment, Manusha Nanayakkara, told Parliament on Tuesday that the Cabinet decided to appoint a special Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to probe into the allegations made by the UK’s Channel 4 programme.
“An international level investigation will also be conducted if a need arises as the need for international assistance to investigate these accusations has been recognised,” he was quoted as saying in the report.
Nine suicide bombers belonging to the local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ) linked to ISIS carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three Catholic churches and as many luxury hotels on April 21, 2019, killing nearly 270 people, including 11 Indians, and injuring over 500.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the head of Sri Lanka’s local Catholic minority, on Wednesday called for an international investigation into the 2019 Easter suicide bombings.
Talking to reporters, Ranjith said he demands a free, impartial, just, transparent and broad-based investigation into facts aired by Channel 4.
“The investigation should take place through an independent international investigation team,” he said.
Ranjith demanded that all senior intelligence personnel linked to the incident, as revealed by Channel 4, should be sacked immediately. He named two deputy inspector generals of police who were still in service and called for their immediate suspension of service.
Since the attacks, several probes have been conducted, but the Cardinal remains dissatisfied, accusing them of being cover-ups rather than genuine efforts to reveal the truth.
The April 2019 Easter attacks led to a significant political change in Sri Lanka. It emerged that the then authorities had ignored prior intelligence on the attack by Indian intelligence agencies.
Then President Maithripala Sirisena and the entire top police brass were ordered to pay compensation by court during a hearing of fundamental rights petitions filed by the victims’ relatives.
However, to date, only partial payments of the compensation have been made.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)
