The Maradana-based Centre for Society and Religion (CSR) has informed the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland, regarding the Government’s alleged failure to conduct proper investigations to bring those responsible for the Easter Sunday terror attacks of 21 April 2019 before the law and to fully publicise the report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) which investigated the said terror attacks.
Speaking in front of the UNHRC Headquarters in Geneva, CSR Chairman Father Rohan Silva said: “We know that the international community, especially the UNHRC, has raised its voice about the Easter Sunday terror attacks on several occasions. They have demanded that justice be served to the victims of this attack and their families. Following the recent Supreme Court (SC) judgement over the terror attacks, they have pointed out that only compensating the victims and their families is not enough but that the Government should work further to determine the truth behind this in order to bring those responsible before the law.”
He also claimed that the Government had not released all documents pertaining to the terror attacks, including all chapters of the final report of the CoI which investigated the terror attacks. With such being the state of affairs, Silva said that it is doubtful whether the Government has a sincere need to carry out the relevant investigations and prosecute the mastermind behind the terror attacks and those who are responsible for not having prevented them.
On 21 April 2019, Easter Sunday, three churches (the St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya, the St. Anthony’s Church in Kochchikade, and the Zion Church in Batticaloa) and three luxury hotels in Colombo (the Cinnamon Grand, The Kingsbury, and The Shangri-La) were targeted in a series of coordinated suicide bombings. Later that day, another two bomb explosions took place at a house in Dematagoda and the Tropical Inn Lodge in Dehiwala. Over 260 people, including the bombers, were killed in the bombings, including about 45 foreign nationals, while at least 500 were injured.
In January, the SC, which ruled that former President and incumbent Opposition MP Maithripala Sirisena, former Defence Ministry Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara, former State Intelligence Service Director and incumbent Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police (SDIG) Nilantha Jayawardena, and former Chief of National Intelligence retired DIG Sisira Mendis have violated fundamental human rights by not preventing the Easter Sunday terror attacks and ordered them to pay compensation to the victims of the attacks, with Sirisena being ordered to pay Rs. 100 million as compensation.
Meanwhile, claiming that there were attempts to harass and intimidate those who demand justice for the said terror attacks, the Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith called upon the UNHRC and its member countries in March 2022 to devise a means to ensure that the truth behind the terror attacks would be uncovered. Making a statement at the 49th Session of the UNHRC, he said that while the first impression of this massacre was that it was purely the work of a few Islamist extremists, subsequent investigations have indicated that the said terror attacks were part of a grand political plot.