Amid coronavirus crisis, Sri Lanka pays homage to Easter bombing victims
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka on Tuesday commemorated the first anniversary of the Easter Sunday bomb attacks that killed nearly 260 people, including 11 Indians, in one of the country's worst terror incidents.
Nine suicide bombers, belonging to local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ) linked to ISIS, carried out a series of blasts that tore through three churches and as many luxury hotels in Sri Lanka, killing 258 people and injuring over 500 on the Easter Sunday on April 21, 2019.
Sri Lankan police have arrested over 200 suspects in connection with the bombings.
Amidst the lockdown to combat the coronavirus, the Sri Lankan government on Tuesday urged all citizens to commemorate those who were killed and affected by the terror attacks by lighting a candle in their memory, Colombo Gazette reported.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in his message of commemoration, said he remembers with deep sorrow, the brutal Easter Sunday terrorist attacks one year ago.
The President called on all citizens to remember the Sri Lankan and Foreign nationals who were killed, wounded and disabled in this attack, by lighting a candle and observing a minute's silence at 8.45 am, it said.
The blasts targeted St Anthony's Church in Colombo, St Sebastian's Church in the western coastal town of Negombo and a church in the eastern town of Batticaloa when the Easter Sunday mass was in progress.
Three explosions were reported from three five-star hotels - the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand and the Kingsbury in Colombo.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said today marks a year to the deadliest suicide bombings that shook Sri Lanka claiming innocent lives.
He said while we remember the lives lost, injured and the families that are still trying to cope, we ensure the borders of Sri Lanka will never see such acts of cowardice ever again.
The Intelligence Service of a friendly nation had provided advance warning to the then Sri Lankan Government of the possible dates and targets for the attacks, including names, addresses and identity cards of the terrorists involved.
This attack could have been prevented, Mahinda said.
Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the Archbishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital said, "Our challenge would be to work amicably with all our fellow citizens and to ensure a spirit of true acceptance and integration within the national fabric of cultures for a peaceful and prosperous new Sri Lanka free of all divisions and petty mindedness."
"On this occasion when we commemorate the dead and pray for the wounded of last year's Easter attacks, I wish to express our sincere gratitude to all those who stood by the victims showing their solidarity and for assisting them in every possible way.
These victims belonged to all ethnic and religious groups in Sri Lanka and included foreigners," he was quoted as saying by the Daily Mirror.
"We have still not been able to find the people who were responsible for these attacks.
It was an attempt to create clashes between different religious communities," Ranjith said in his special message.
The Ministry of Foreign Relations said, Sri Lanka remembers all those lives lost and changed forever in barbaric acts of violence during the Easter Sunday attacks one year ago.
We share the grief of families who lost their loved ones and stand in solidarity with those countries which lost their nationals, the Ministry added.
Minister of Foreign relations Dinesh Gunawardena called on all citizens to join to remember and pay respects to all those who lost their lives by inhumane terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday in 2019.
The Minister further wished fast recovery and good health for those still recuperating from the attacks.
He also called for the perpetrators to be brought before the law.
The then head of the police and the top defence ministry bureaucrat were arrested for criminal negligence.
The presidential probe is still continuing while the parliamentary panel has issued its report.
Last week a fresh round of arrests came with two high profile arrests.
The island nation has been under a 24-hour curfew since March 20 to combat the deadly viral infection.
Sri Lanka has so far reported 295 COVID-19 cases, including seven deaths, and 96 recoveries, since the first viral infection was reported in the country on March 11.
Over 3,500 people, including foreigners, remain quarantined in more than 40 centres across the country following the coronavirus outbreak.