By Norman Palihawadane Courtesy The Island

A raid conducted by CID sleuths, investigating into last year’s Easter Sunday carnage, has yielded evidence which would certainly solve hitherto unknown mysteries and enable arrests of key politicians behind the terror attacks which killed 269 persons and injured over 450 others, according to highly placed sources.

The new evidence had been unearthed after a raid by the CID, at a training centre, at Karbala Road, in Palamune, Kattankudy, last week. The training centre had been run, for women, by the terrorist leader Mohamed Zahran Hashim, who led the Easter Sunday suicide bombings.

The CID officers have uncovered the information on the location of the women’s training centre during the interrogation of a suspect, arrested in connection with the vandalism of Buddhist statues, in Mawanella.

Later, the CID officers were able to go with the suspect to the Karbala area of Kattankudy and search a hotel, called Ziyad Garden. Subsequently, the police commandos inspected its rooms and the hotel compound.

The CID officers questioned the owner of the hotel and the previous owner of the land and recorded their statements.

Investigations have revealed that the wives of the suicide bombers, who were killed in the series of bombings, on churches and hotels, on April 21, last year, had participated in lectures conducted by the National Towheed Jammath leader, and the suicide bomber Zahran, at the site..

A senior police officer said that a woman who had attended the lectures, at the Karbala Road training centre, had been identified and she would be taken into custody soon. “Several politicians, who had channeled funds and provided assistance and facilities to the NTJ, would be taken in. The investigators will not give consideration to the post or status of the suspects. There will be arrests of key persons who managed to evade the law.”

Eleven CID teams are conducting further investigations.

One such team, on Saturday, arrested a Hajjiyar who had given a land, in Trincomalee, to NJT, to conduct firearms training to Muslim youth.

It has been revealed that five youth, from Mawanella, have been given firearms training, in 2017, in the land given by the suspect, by the name of Mohamed Hanifa Haja Mohamed. He had also pro vided a T-56 assault rifle for the training. The suspect had served as an informant for military intelligence units during the war and was later involved in politics. He was arrested from Thoppur. He has a house in Mawanella.

CID sources said that the land at Thoppur was used as a livestock farm and a person, identified as Sadiq, who is a key disciple of the suicide bomber and NTJ leader Zahran, had given weapons training to the youth in that farm.

Investigations have ascertained that Sadiq, one of the main suspects in damaging Buddha statues, at Mawanella, had been to Syria and received training from ISIS. Upon his return from Syria, he had run the training camp, at Thoppur, on the instructions of Zahran. He had told the Mawanella youths about his terrorist activities in Syria and was preparing to launch a second series of attacks after the Easter Sunday carnage last year, CID sources said.