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Sri Lanka’s health minister has claimed that a local organisation was linked to the string of bombings that killed nearly 300 people and wounded 500 others.
Rajitha Senaratne yesterday blamed President Maithripala Sirisena’s government for failing to act on intelligence shared 14 days before the multiple blasts that targeted churches and luxury hotels across the island nation.
Speaking at a Press conference in the capital Colombo, Senaratne said that failure to act against National Thowheeth Jama’ath, a hardline Muslim local organisation, had devastated the entire country.
“Unfortunately, despite all these revelations by the intelligence units we could not avert these attacks,” Senaratne, who is also the Cabinet spokesman, said.
He hinted at possible role of international network in the Easter Sunday attacks that have shocked the island nation.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks so far.
The government on Monday declared April 23 as a day of national mourning following the worst attack in the Indian Ocean island nation since its civil war ended a decade ago.
Senaratne’s criticism of President Sirisena, who heads the security forces, comes a day after Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe acknowledged that “information was there” about possible attacks.
“We must also look into why adequate precautions were not taken,” he said on Sunday.
Ties between the two leaders are at an all-time low following Sirisena’s sacking of Wickremesinghe in October.
The move triggered a weeks-long political crisis that ended only when the Supreme Court overturned that decision.
There were fears the attacks could spark a renewal of communal violence, with police also reporting late on Sunday there had been a petrol bomb attack on a mosque in the northwest and arson attacks on two shops owned by Muslims in the west.
Christian, Muslim and Hindus form nearly a quarter of the South Asian nation’s 23 million population.
– Al Jazeera
Online Reporter