Sri Lanka commemorated the 7th anniversary of the Easter blasts, with Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith urging authorities to investigate individuals directly or indirectly involved in the deadly attacks, irrespective of their status.
A Sri Lankan court has ordered the continued detention of the former head of the state intelligence service in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed nearly 270 people.
Sri Lanka's response to the Easter attacks has been slow and politically contested, unlike India's swift institutional reforms after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, observes Colonel R Hariharan (retd).
Suresh Sallay, former intelligence chief, has been ordered to appear in a Sri Lankan court next month as the third suspect in the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks probe. He is currently detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
The National Tawheed Jamath is suspected of plotting the deadly Easter blasts.
The curfew was imposed on Sunday after a group of miscreants carrying swords attacked some people travelling on a three-wheeler in Porathota area of the town. The vehicle was set on fire.
-- Seven suicide bombers believed to be members of an Islamist extremist group carried out the series of explosions. -- Police have so far arrested 24 people - mostly members of an Islamist extremist group - in connection with the blasts
Even as the polity find ways and means to address the genuine concerns and fears of the society, the Sri Lankan State apparatus would have to unravel these mystery-questions with convincing answers, and a road-map to the future, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Forty suspects, including the driver of a van allegedly used by the suicide bombers, have been arrested in connection with the attacks which shook Sri Lanka.
The suspicious van was wanted over the terror attacks and was taken into custody at Sungavila.
Seven persons had been arrested in connection with the blasts.
A Sri Lankan court on Friday named former president Maithripala Sirisena as a suspect in the 2019 Easter bombings in which 270 people, including 11 Indians, were killed.
The decision came after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin recommended an investigation by the National Investigation Agency into the Sunday blast in which an engineer was killed.
The details of the attackers and their relatives linked to the bombings was released by the police on Wednesday.
Dr Anil Jasinghe, Director General of the Health Services, said the larger death toll was released as a result of a calculation error.
On this day last year, ICC Anti-Corruption council officer Steve Richardson chose to eat breakfast in the executive lounge on the ninth floor of Cinnamon Grand instead of heading down to restaurant, a decision that saved him from the Easter Bombings. Richardson, who was in the country along with his colleagues to investigate corruption charges against Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), was staying on the ninth floor of the hotel in Colombo, one of the six locations where bombs went off in a series of blasts, killing and injuring hundreds of people across the country.
Father Edmond Tillekeratne, social communications director for the Archdiocese of Colombo, said that the blast took place after Easter Mass, and that there were about 30 bodies lying in the area of the church.
The commander said that by looking at the pattern of operation and the places that the suspects travelled, there has to be some outside involvement of some leadership or instructions.
Authorities also released photographs of six suspects, including three women, wanted for their involvement in the attacks and sought information regarding them from the public.
The NIA had alerted the island nation that ISIS terrorists were planning to carry out strikes there.
Police said they have seized a large haul of explosives, a drone and a banner with the Islamic State logo.
"My heart goes out to the families of the victims and the injured," Modi said.
Sri Lankan cricketer Dasun Shanaka revisited the Easter Sunday horror, the serial blasts that took place in the country on Sunday, leaving almost 300 people dead and more than 500 injured.
The names of both Maregowda and Puttaraju had figured in the list of missing Janata Dal-Secular workers tweeted by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Monday.
Meanwhile, a three-member committee appointed to probe the attacks that killed 258 people, including 11 Indians, on Monday submitted its final report to President Maithripala Sirisena.
'What happened last Sunday is a great tragedy, an insult to humanity'
A man, one of the six accused in the explosion case in Coimbatore, confessed during interrogation that he met two men in a Kerala prison who had links with an ISIS group involved in the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, police sources said on Friday.
Terror shook the world for the second time in less than a week on Sunday, with a suicide bombing that killed at least 65 at a park in Lahore.
President Maithripala Sirisena said Friday that over 130 suspects linked to the Islamic State terror group have been operating in the country.
Sri Lankan foreign ministry said that the number of foreign nationals who have been killed in the attack rose to 36.
In searches carried out in the city earlier, the NIA had arrested two people -- Mohammed Azarudheen and Shiek Hidayathulla.
'The blasts in Lanka are against our ideology.'
Over 300 people were also injured in the attack and many of them were in a critical condition.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the attack, adding: "The target was Christians."
A police release in Coimbatore said a case has been registered in the Ukkadam police station over the incident.
While 10 persons from Karnataka have been confirmed dead, at least seven of them are said to be JD-S workers.
He was arrested on the charges of unauthorised entry and was later remanded by the Negombo magistrate till May 15, police said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday met the top priests of various churches in Kerala, giving a push to the Bharatiya Janata Party's efforts to reach out to the influential minority community in the southern state ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, sources said.
The blasts -- one of the deadliest attacks in the country's history -- targeted St Anthony's Church in Colombo, St Sebastian's Church in the western coastal town of Negombo and Zion Church in the eastern town of Batticaloa around 8.45 am (local time) as the Easter Sunday mass were in progress.
The NIA on Thursday filed a chargesheet against six people in connection with the October 2022 Coimbatore car bomb blast, saying the prime accused of the terrorist attack was "inspired by ISIS ideology".
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