Soon after reports of the intelligence failure in the serial bomb blasts that jolted Sri Lanka on the fateful Easter Sunday surfaced, President Maithripala Sirisena reportedly asked his Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and IGP Pujith Jayasundara to resign from their offices.
Sources say the President’s office has conveyed the message to both the ministers on Wednesday morning.
It should also be noted that Fernando met with President Sirisena at the Presidential Secretariat a short while ago.
Earlier in the day, Sri Lanka's deputy defence minister Ruwan Wijewardene revealed that one of the nine bombers who detonated explosives on Easter Sunday was a woman, as the death toll mounted to 359. Another suicide bomber had studied in the UK and Australia, the minister had informed the media.
“We believe that one of the suicide bombers studied in the UK and later did his postgraduate [studies] in Australia before coming back and settling in Sri Lanka,” said Wijewardene.
Meanwhile, a special task force conducted a controlled blast in Colombo after spotting a suspicious motorcycle.
The Islamic State terror group has claimed responsibility for the devastating Easter blasts in Sri Lanka and identified the suicide bombers who were involved in the attacks.
Seven suicide bombers carried out a series of coordinated blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels in and around Colombo on Easter Sunday, in the country's worst terror attack.