ECONOMYNEXT – Seven years have passed since the morning of April 21, 2019, when the tranquility of Easter Sunday was shattered by a series of coordinated suicide bombings by Islamist extremists across Sri Lanka.
What remains today is not just the physical scars on the walls of St Sebastian’s Church, St Anthony’s Shrine or the Zion Church, but a profound and festering justice gap.
The delay in concluding a credible investigation has become a defining characteristic of Sri Lanka’s post-war era, transforming a national tragedy into a perennial wound.
Despite many promises by political leaders and numerous probes including a Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI), the truth behind the tragedy is yet to be revealed beyond any doubt.
The Black Sunday
On that fateful morning, 9 suicide bombers affiliated with the local extremist group National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) targeted 3 luxury hotels in Colombo and 3 churches in Kochchikade, Negombo, and Batticaloa.
The blasts killed at least 270 people, including 45 foreign nationals, and injured more than 500.
It was the deadliest violence the country had seen since the end of the civil war in 2009.
The shock was compounded by the revelation that Indian intelligence agencies had provided specific warnings to Lankan authorities weeks and even hours before the attacks; warnings that were tragically ignored due to a catastrophic breakdown in communication between then-President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Independent Probe Matters
In the aftermath of such a complex crime, the independence of the inquiry is the only currency of trust.
For the Easter attacks, independence is not merely a legal requirement but a social necessity.
The public needs to know the grand mastermind behind the plot.
While the foot soldiers and immediate conspirators have been identified, questions linger about the deep state involvement and intelligence failures.
An investigation free from political interference is the only way to debunk conspiracy theories that continue to destabilize the nation.
Without it, the state remains complicit in the eyes of the bereaved.
Unfortunately, successive governments have been using the probe as a political tool to win elections. It was the case with former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government followed by Ranil Wickremesinghe’s administration. So far, it has been the same with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s government despite some arrests from time to time.
Shattered National Unity
The delay has acted as a slow-release poison for national unity.
In 2019, Sri Lanka was still healing from three decades of ethnic conflict.
The Easter attacks introduced a new fault line: Islamic extremism.
Because the legal system has failed to provide a final, transparent verdict, suspicions between communities still remain high.
Reconciliation requires a shared truth.
When the truth is suppressed, groups retreat into their own narratives of victimhood and suspicion, preventing the social cohesion necessary for a developing nation.
The failure to find the behind-the-scene details of this massacre has led to disharmony between Muslims and others, while some political actors still try to gain traction through the incident.
Most Affected
The Catholic community has transitioned from grief to a relentless crusade for justice.
They feel betrayed by successive governments that promised the truth within weeks but delivered years of stalled commissions.
For many Catholics, the delay is seen as a deliberate cover-up of high-ranking officials.
Conversely, the Muslim community has faced a double burden.
They were victims of the extremist fringe within their faith, yet they became the targets of collective punishment.
The lack of a concluded investigation means the stigma of suspicion is never fully lifted from the community.
Frequent search operations and discriminatory rhetoric in the years following the attack have pushed the community toward a sense of alienation.
Investigation So Far
Since 2019, there have been multiple layers of inquiry to find out the truth about the Easter attacks.
The Malalgoda Committee was the first formal inquiry established in the immediate wake of the attacks, appointed by then-President Maithripala Sirisena.
Chaired by Supreme Court Justice Vijith Malalgoda, the 3-member board, which also included former Inspector General of Police (IGP) N K Illangakoon and former Law and Order Ministry Secretary Padmasiri Jayamanne, was tasked with investigating the causes and background of the attacks within a strict 2-week window.
The committee’s findings were foundational, as they were among the first to officially document the catastrophic intelligence failures and lapses in communication between the security apparatus and the political leadership.
Specifically, the Malalgoda Report highlighted that specific warnings from foreign intelligence agencies had reached top security officials but were not acted upon, a revelation that later paved the way for more extensive investigations, including the Parliamentary Select Committee and the Presidential Commission of Inquiry.
The Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) appointed to investigate the attacks released a comprehensive report in October 2019 that placed heavy accountability on the state’s security and intelligence apparatus.
The findings revealed that senior officials had received specific intelligence regarding the impending attacks from foreign agencies as early as April 4, 2019, yet failed to act, leading to a catastrophic breakdown in national security.
The PSC highlighted a fractured relationship between then-President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, which resulted in the Prime Minister and other key officials being excluded from National Security Council meetings.
Crucially, the committee noted that the intelligence failure was not merely a technical oversight but was exacerbated by deep state complexities and the politicization of intelligence wings.
The report concluded that the attacks could have been prevented, or their impact significantly minimized, had the existing intelligence been shared and acted upon through the proper institutional channels.
The Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) into the Easter Sunday attacks, appointed in September 2019, produced the most extensive official record of the tragedy, concluding its mandate with a final report running into thousands of pages.
The commission’s findings centered on a grave failure of the state’s duty to protect its citizens, specifically recommending criminal proceedings against former President Maithripala Sirisena and top security brass for criminal negligence.
The PCoI detailed how a lack of structural synergy between the State Intelligence Service (SIS) and other security agencies allowed the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ) to operate and radicalize undetected for years.
Beyond immediate security lapses, the commission provided a controversial set of recommendations aimed at preventing future extremism, including the banning of certain extremist organizations, the regulation of madrasas, and reforms to the national education curriculum.
While it provided an exhaustive chronological map of the attacks, the PCoI has faced criticism from victims’ groups and the Catholic Church for failing to definitively identify the mastermind or the intellectual authors behind the plot.
Finally, in a landmark judgment delivered on January 12, 2023, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka held former President Maithripala Sirisena and several top security officials personally liable for failing to prevent the attacks despite receiving credible intelligence.
A 7-judge bench ruled that the respondents had violated the fundamental rights of the victims by their reckless inaction and failure to convene the National Security Council.
The court ordered the former president to pay 100 million rupees in compensation from his personal funds to a victim benefit fund.
Other officials, including former IGP Pujith Jayasundara and former State Intelligence Service (SIS) Director Nilantha Jayawardena, were also ordered to pay significant sums.
This ruling was hailed as a historic victory for judicial accountability in Sri Lanka, as it marked the first time a Head of State was held legally responsible for executive negligence regarding national security, providing a measure of civil justice to the survivors and the families of the perished victims.
Despite all these, the criminal prosecution of the intellectual authors of the crime remains stagnant, with many cases bogged down in preliminary legal hurdles.
Tool for Political Leverage
The Easter Sunday attacks have been described as the most potent political tool in modern Lankan history.
In the 2019 elections, the promise of national security and finding the culprits were central pillars that brought the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration to power.
However, once in office, the momentum for the investigation appeared to shift.
Since then, various parties have used the tragedy to either claim the mantle of protectors of the faith or to accuse rivals of being part of a deep state conspiracy.
This politicization of grief has ensured that the victims’ quest for justice is always secondary to the electoral cycle.
Exploitation by Extremists
Following the attacks, extremist elements within the Buddhist clergy and nationalist groups exploited the tragedy to advance an Islamophobic agenda.
They utilized the fear generated by the bombings to call for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses and to push for controversial legislation regarding personal laws and traditional dress.
These groups framed the attacks not as the act of a fringe cult, but as an existential threat to the Sinhala-Buddhist character of the country, leading to localized anti-Muslim riots in places like Minuwangoda.
Why the Delay?
The 7-year delay is attributed to 3 main factors including systemic bureaucracy.
The sheer volume of evidence and the complexity of international links (with groups like ISIS) have overwhelmed local investigators. It needs more resources and legal processes in place to speed up the investigations.
The second factor, analysts say, is the intelligence sensitivity. Much of the evidence involves the secret service and intelligence assets. Exposing the full truth risks revealing the inner workings, and the failures, of the state’s security apparatus, they say.
The lack of political will is also a key factor for the delay. There is a pervasive belief that a truly independent investigation might lead to the doorstep of powerful political figures across the spectrum, creating a mutual protection pact among the elite.
Some politicians citing US intelligence reports say the mastermind was already found and there is no more probes needed. Some say the mastermind was Noufar Moulavi, who is now under arrest and facing criminal charges. There are some conspiracy theorists who say India had a hand on it. But none of these are proven and conclusive except that it was Zaharan Hashim who led the suicide bombers to kill innocent Lankans against his own religious belief.
Forgotten in the Paperwork
Lost in the political debates and the legal jargon are the victims.
Seven years later, many survivors are still undergoing surgeries to remove shrapnel.
Families have lost their primary breadwinners, and children have grown up without parents.
While financial compensation has been distributed, the victims consistently state that money is not justice.
The psychological toll of living in a country where you can be blown up in a place of worship, and where the state cannot or will not explain why, is a burden that continues to weigh down the Lankan psyche.
Until the final mastermind is brought to light, the ghosts of Easter 2019 will continue to haunt the halls of power in Colombo, serving as a reminder that a nation without justice is a nation without peace. (Colombo/April 21/2026)