Sri Lanka: Local Terrorist Outfit behind the attacks

The Health Minister of Sri Lanka, Rajitha Senaratne, has said that a local terrorist organisation is linked to a series of bombings which has claimed the lives of nearly 300 people and left around 500 others. The Minister has held the President Maithripala Sirisena for his failure to act on the intelligence input which had been shared at least 14 days before the brutal bombings which had targeted the churches and other luxury hotels in the country.
Senaratne also said that the governmental failure to act against the hardline Muslim outfit, National Thoweeth Jama’ath has actually left the whole country devastated. He accepted that despite the revelations which had been made by the intelligence agencies the government was unable to thwart the attacks. He did not rule out the hand of international organisations behind the brutal attack which ripped apart the island nation on the holy occasion of Easter.
No terrorist group has claimed the responsibility of the attack so far. The government of Sri Lanka has declared April 23, as the day of national mourning following the worst attack on the nation ever since the civil war had ended a decade ago. The criticism of the President, by the sitting Health Minister, has come after a day when the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had accepted the fact that the information about the attacks was already there.
It is the second time since last October that the Prime Minister is at odds with the President since the latter had sacked the PM in October. He was reinstated as the decision was overturned by the Supreme Court. The attacks can lead to the spread of communal violence in the country.
A series of bomb attacks had sent the entire nation into shock on Easter. The first attack had taken place in the capital Colombo in a famous church during the Easter ceremonies were underway. This was followed by blasts in two other churches and two luxury hotels both in and around the capital. Hours later two more bombs detonated taking the death toll to over 290 and wounding many hundreds. This is seen as the worst terrorist attack in the country in the decade. The attack was severely condemned by the international leaders.
Sri Lanka has Christians, Muslims and Hindus population which form about a quarter of the island nation’s 23 million people. Sri Lanka is chiefly a Buddhist country.