The Colombo’s Magistrate Court on Friday announced former Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena as the prime suspect of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombing and ordered him to appear before court this October.
The order against Mr. Sirisena has been passed by a private plaint filed by Father Cyril Gamini Fernando who is a member of the National Catholic Committee for Justice to Easter Sunday Attack Victims, as reported by The Hindu.
This is not the first time when the blame has been put on his shoulders. Earlier, the Parliamentary Committee constituted by Ranil Wickremesinghe who was the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka on the eve of Easter Sunday bombings in May 2019, with the task of inquiring the bombing. The Committee had made such accusations against Mr. Sirisena and alleged that Mr. Sirisena neglected the national security of the country and undermined warnings and the security system of the country that caused heavy casualties to the country’s human capital.
Besides Sirisena, other top defence officials, including former Police Chief Pujith Jayasundera and former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando were also held guilty of ignoring prior intelligence reports and indicated to be charged with criminal actions. It is pertinent to note that in the course of inquiry, Pujith Jayasundara had told Parliament that Sirisena had once asked him to take the whole blame of the incident by resigning from his post and in return would award him diplomatic posting.
Further, in the year 2021, Mr. Sirisena and his intelligence chiefs were accused of the bombing by a Presidential Commission of Inquiry on the pretext that despite being receiving an intelligence input from India weeks before the bombing by the Islamic State (ISIS) led National Thawheed Jamaat, he ignored the input and risked the security of the county, further tearing it to the extreme.
It has been three years since the bereaved families of the victims have been calling for justice which caused the death of 269 lives including 11 Indians and injuring over 500 people.
Inkling of the incident
It is to be noted that high authorities of the Sri Lankan government have incessantly been contending that the incident was a planned political plot with malicious motive of electoral gain and expanding political influence. Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith while reiterating to the UN Human Rights Council opined the same view and said that the incident was a grand political plot.
After the six months of the incident, Gotabah Rajapaksa ran for preside trial elections and made great promises of national security from internal as well as foreign elements, and as a consequence won election with an applauded majority.
However, the scrutiny over the matter continued at a slow pace and disappointed the Cardinal.
Earlier this month, the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been released that calls for the disclosure of complete findings of the investigation so far done on the Easter Sunday bombing and the continuance of the investigation with international assistance.
