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Memories of savage attacks linger alongside quest for Easter justice
View(s):By S. Rubatheesan
Ahead of last week’s New Year holiday season, T. Regan and his family left for their hometown, Pundaluoya, Kandy.
They did not go to mark the New Year in their hometown but to visit the cemetery where their five-year-old daughter, Leema Rithika, was buried. She was among the 270 victims of the deadly Easter Sunday attacks, Sri Lanka’s biggest terrorist attack.
The attacks that targeted churches in Colombo and Batticaloa and two other high-end tourist hotels by a Muslim fundamentalist group left over 500 people maimed as well.
Fr Cyril Gamini Fernando: Someone above Zahran directed him and his organisation's activities
Sunday, April 21, 2019, was a fateful day for Mr Regan, 43, with four children. Like other Catholic faithful, hundreds of families gathered at St Anthony’s Church, Kochchikade, for services when the bomb went off.
While he and other family members survived with minor injuries, his daughter died at the scene along with 46 others at the church.
“We went there [cemetery] this year since the burial, as we had relocated to a different area. Even for the recent Good Friday, we went to the Kochchikade church, and the whole family was very emotional. It was very painful for us,” Mr Regan told the Sunday Times.
Living with the memories of her daughter, who was massacred with others in the church during prayers, is something immensely emotional for the whole family, as she is the youngest of four.
“She was our little princess for our family. Since the day we lost her, our lives are not the same,” Mr Reagan, who works in a plastic production company in the suburbs of Colombo, said.
Since the attacks seven years ago, several investigations have been launched, followed by a Parliamentary Select Committee and a Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI), but justice remains elusive.
Unlike the previous governments, Mr Regan is hopeful that the National People’s Power (NPP) government will ensure justice is done.
“We noticed that the government has taken strong steps to identify masterminds behind these attacks. This did not happen in the past. We are hopeful justice will be served soon,” Mr Regan said.
Timeline of Easter Sunday investigations:
Soon after the attack, then President Maithripala Sirisena appointed a three-member committee headed by Supreme Court judge Vijith Malalgoda to investigate.
The committee found that the attackers were linked to a local Islamist extremist group, National Thowheed Jama’ath (NTJ), and the government had received previous intelligence warnings from India about imminent attacks.
Presidential Commission of Inquiry
Former President Maithripala Sirisena appointed the commission of inquiry on September 22, 2019, headed by Court of Appeal Judge Janaka de Silva, to investigate and report on the series of terrorist attacks.
The report comprises 472 pages, 215 annexures and 6 volumes. Other members of the commission were Court of Appeal judge Nishshanka Bandula Karunaratne, retired Supreme Court judges Nihal Sunil Rajapaksha and A. L. Bandula Kumara Atapattu and former Justice Ministry Secretary W. M. M. R. Adhikari.
The report found that the bombings were caused by institutional paralysis rather than just intelligence failure, identifying that “actionable intelligence” was received but not acted upon by senior officials.
Key findings include naming Zahran Hashim and the local group National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) as perpetrators, recommending prosecution for officials who failed to act, and pointing to a planned conspiracy.
The report also found that while intelligence was provided (including warnings from India), the Ministry of Defence, State Intelligence Service (SIS), and police failed to stop the attacks, highlighting a breakdown in the chain of command rather than just a lack of information.
The commission named Muhammed Naufer (Naufer Moulavi) as the mastermind of the plot, along with co-conspirator Hajj-ul Akbar, and recommended that criminal investigations be launched against several high-ranking officials for negligence of duty, including former President Maithripala Sirisena, then defence secretary, and ranking police officials.
On January 12, 2023, the Supreme Court ordered top officials, including former President Maithripala Sirisena, to pay compensation of over Rs 300 million for failing to prevent the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.
Former President Sirisena was ordered to pay Rs 100m, while then Inspector General of Police (IGP) Pujith Jayasundara was ordered to pay Rs 75m.
Former defence secretary Hemasiri Fernando and former National Intelligence Services director Sisira Mendis were ordered to pay Rs 50m and Rs 10m, respectively.
Select Committee findings
A nine-member parliamentary select committee, chaired by then Deputy Speaker Ananda Kumarasiri, was appointed on May 22, 2019. It investigated intelligence failures, interviewed over 60 people — including former President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe — and submitted its final report on October 23, 2019.
The PSC report concluded that intelligence agencies were aware of impending attacks but failed to communicate or act on them effectively, highlighting a major breakdown in the security apparatus.
One of the recommendations by the committee was to further investigate politicians and religious leaders whose inflammatory speeches may have created an environment for radicalisation.
Channel 4: ‘Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings: Dispatches’
A September 2023 documentary by UK broadcaster Channel 4, titled “Sri Lanka’s Easter Bombings: Dispatches”, alleged high-level state complicity in the attacks.
The documentary film, based on a whistleblower, one-time paramilitary group individual Hanzeer Azad Moulana, suggested that the bombings were part of a deliberate plot to create insecurity in the country to pave the way for a strong ‘national security’ spirit government.
The whistleblower claimed that he arranged meetings between intelligence officials and the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) members who later carried out bombings. However, Gen. Suresh Sallay vehemently denied the allegations, stating he was in Malaysia at the time of the alleged meeting and had never met the NTJ members.
Arrest of Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan
On April 8, 2025, the CID arrested Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan — widely known as Pillayan — at the office of his party, Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP), headquarters in Batticaloa.
Days after the arrest, Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told Parliament that significant information had emerged linking Pillayan to the attacks.
Vatican declares 167 victims as ‘witnesses of faith’
Coinciding with the sixth anniversary last year, the church said the Vatican named 167 of its faithful killed in the attacks as witnesses of faith.
According to Colombo’s Archbishop, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in the Vatican, included the names of 167 Catholics who died in the bombings in the churches of St Anthony in Colombo and St Sebastian in Negombo “in the catalogue of the witnesses of the faith in its order book, considering the context of their heroism’’.
The Archbishop said they were chosen “due to violent opposition to their faith motivated by ‘odium fidei’, the hate of the faith.”
Trial at Bar
A trial at bar comprising High Court Judges Nawaratne Marasinghe (President), Sujeewa Nissanka and Ramanathan Kannan was appointed to hear the cases related to Easter Sunday attacks against 24 accused. One of the accused died while in prison.
The trial-at-bar was constituted after the Attorney General filed indictments against 24 suspects who are alleged to have committed 23,269 offences. Some 23,000 pages of indictment documents were translated into Tamil and Sinhala and have been placed before the court.
The AG has also listed 184 items of evidence, including 76 swords, a couple of batteries, detonators, etc. At least 2,190 persons are listed as official witnesses, with Dr Rohan Gunaratne, former Director General of the Institute of National Security Studies, and Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Suresh Salley, former Chief of the State Intelligence Service (SIS), named as first and second witnesses, respectively.
Ex-intel chief arrested
Former Director of the State Intelligence Service (SIS), retired Major General Suresh Salley, was arrested on February 25 by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) over his alleged role in the deadly terror attacks. He is under a 90-day detention order.
13 Diyawanna debates on attacks
With last week’s adjournment debate on Easter Sunday attacks, the House witnessed its 13th debate on the attacks as this year marks the seventh anniversary.
Moving the adjournment debate on last Thursday, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa reiterated that even though several governments took office over seven years, none of them was able to identify and arrest masterminds behind the attacks as they promised.
Mr Premadasa proposed an independent and transparent, state accountability mechanism to identify the masterminds by making all investigation reports thus far available for public view.
Taking part in the debate, Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala informed the House that ongoing investigations have uncovered that the attacks were not an isolated incident but a result of a conspiracy in motion since 2017.
The attacks, he said, were the result of a series of coordinated and systematically executed events over several years by the same group.
Shadowy hand directed attackers
The Catholic Church declared on Friday that there has been evidence to suggest the existence of an individual or a group that operated above Zahran Hashim, the so-called leader of NTJ, and had allegedly directed his actions.
The Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of Colombo, Rev. Fr Cyril Gamini Fernando, told reporters that at least one of two people was above Zahran and directed him and his organisation’s activities.
Fr Fernando urged disciplinary action against officials who are trying to disrupt the ongoing investigations in the police and the Attorney General’s Department.
“We came to know that there have been instances of misdirecting the current probe and intimidation attempts of witnesses as well,” he said.
He also urged all parties not to interfere with ongoing investigations into the 2019 Easter Sunday terrorist attacks.
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