Updated 12 April 2020 at 16:44 IST
Sri Lanka church 'forgives' 2019 Easter suicide bombers who killed 279 people
Sri Lanka’s Roman Catholic Church said on Easter Sunday that it has forgiven the suicide bombers who attacked and killed at least 279 people last Easter.
Sri Lanka’s Roman Catholic Church said on April 12 that it has forgiven the suicide bombers who attacked and killed at least 279 people last Easter. During a TV broadcast due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told an Easter mass that they “offered love to the enemies” who tried to destroy them.
The Easter Sunday bombings of April 21, 2019, targeted three churches and three luxury hotels that killed at least 279 people and injuring 593 in the tragic incident. A Sri Lankan parliamentary committee, in its report on Easter suicide bombing, held the country’s spy chief primarily responsible for the intelligence failure. The findings of the parliamentary select committee (PSC) pointed to multiple levels of failures which led to the deaths of 279 people in the attacks.
'Slow in sharing information'
The committee, in the report released on October 24, said that the Chief of State Intelligence Service (SIS), Nilantha Jayawardena, was slow in sharing the information with other agencies. The committee noted that attacks could have been prevented if the matter was discussed in a meeting held on April 9.
It also held the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the then Minister of Defence (MoD) responsible for not following up on whether the President and the Prime Minister were informed of the intelligence received. “This failure by the SIS has resulted in hundreds of deaths, many more injured and immeasurable devastation to Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans and that must not be treated lightly,” the report read.
The report also lamented the increasing politicisation of the security and intelligence sector. It said that the secretary of the Ministry of Defence should have been in regular contact with the President and able to communicate with the Prime Minister in case the President was unavailable.
Months after the attack, Gotabaya Rajapaksa emerged as a strong challenger to Maithripala Sirisena for the presidential elections on the poll plank of national security. Rajapaksa emerged as a clear winner becoming the next president of Sri Lanka and appointing his elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, as the Prime Minister following the resignation of Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Published By : Kunal Gaurav
Published On: 12 April 2020 at 16:44 IST