Shenali D Waduge
Since May 2021, a sequence of public statements has attempted to reshape the understanding of the Easter Sunday attacks and promote a new narrative burying a critical factor that may contribute to future attacks if the indoctrination that Zaharan & associates were subject to was not identified and remedial actions taken at a national level.
The new narrative was initiated by:
- Former Attorney GeneralDappula de Livera referred to a grand conspiracy” before leaving office in May 2021
- In October 2021, Cyril Gamini publicly linked intelligence actors — naming Suresh Sallay as being linked to Zahran Hashim
- In Aug-Sept 2023,Asad Maulana, through Channel 4, advanced a narrative that the attacks were planned to create chaos and change government
These claims intentionally or unintentionally
- Introduced new actors not named in any of the reports/commissions to the narrative
- More dangerously the new narrative replaced the motive of the attacks
If a new theory is being introduced while replacing the established motive 7 years after the attacks the burden to prove the new links to displace the existing demands powerful evidence not hearsay.
Failure to do both renders the new narrative incomplete.
Contradictions in the new narratives
- If Zaharan was co-opted to commit suicide for regime change – how can Fr. Cyril & Asad Maulana explain the decision to commit suicide of 10 or so others? Did the wife of Shangri-la suicide bomber commit suicide in Dematagoda killing her 2 children & unborn baby for that same regime change?
Did the 15 who died in Sainamaradu 4 days after the Easter Attacks also commit suicide for regime change?
These incidents depict ideologically consistent suicide clusters. Indoctrinated individuals don’t require external command to act. This removes any need for a central handler directing multiple suicide events.
Anyone questioning this must present the command structure linking these actors to a political objective?
No evidence has been presented of communication, command instructions, or coordination logs linking multiple attackers to any external controller.
The Sainthamaruthu incident was not an operational attack—it was a defensive mass suicide triggered by imminent arrest.
This behavior is consistent with ISIS doctrine: avoid capture, die as martyrs.
Similar patterns have been observed globally in ISIS-linked cells:
- Final stand → detonation
- No surrender → self-destruction
- Inclusion of women and children → ideological totalization
This raises a decisive contradiction:
- A political operation requires survivability, deniability, and post-event leverage
- A mass suicide eliminates all assets, intelligence trails, and strategic value
- Which political operation designs a plan where every operative self-destructs—including non-combatants?
- The father of 2 of the suicide brothers & his daughter-in-law were not politically linked to the party assumed to be brought to power – the father was on the national list of the party that Zaharan campaigned to bring to power in 2015. In fact, the family was funding Zaharan’s training & safe houses – why would 3 members of this family fund and decide to commit suicide to bring an opponent to power?
- The funding pattern itself contradicts the conspiracy theory: Funding came from within the network, not from an external handler
- Safehouses, logistics, and materials were internally sustained
- No evidence has been presented of: state funding, covert transfers, intelligence-linked financial trails
This leads to a critical evidentiary gap:
- Where is the financial link that connects this alleged operation” to any state or intelligence actor?
Because:
No modern covert operation exists without a financial trail. Absence of such contradicts claims of a state-linked operation.
This contradiction strikes at the core of the regime-change theory:
If the father, sons, daughter-in-law supporting one political party cannot logically decide to sacrifice their lives to enable another political party to power.
What Fr. Cyril & Asad are doing is selective focus on Zaharan & alleged intelligence links against the former head of the intelligence.
But they cannot sustain their argument unless they present evidence that the others who pledged to commit suicide at Span Towers, Mt. Lavinia before the attacks & uploaded several videos of their allegiance to ISIS did so not for Al Bagdadi but to enable regime change.
These were not symbolic gestures. They followed a standard ISIS bay’ah (pledge) protocol:
- oath to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
- group synchronization
- pre-operation recording
- dissemination through ISIS media channels
- ISIS did not merely claim” responsibility:
- It validated and broadcastthe attackers
- It integrated the attack into its global propaganda
This creates a legal and logical barrier:
You cannot reinterpret a declared ideological allegiance as a political act without proving coercion or deception.
Does Fr. Cyril & Co have any recording that claims the suicides are for political change and requested by intelligence?
The evidence is clear:
- ideological causation explains collective participation – the members of NTJ followed a code, an ideology, believed in scriptures Zaharan preached and promoted among participants that took part in many sessions held across the country. At none of these sessions is there testimony to ask participants to commit suicide to bring regime change.
- Testimony regarding repeated training sessions, ideological instruction, weapons familiarization, and operational preparation indicates a structured radicalization process. This process aligns with extremist indoctrination models, not short-term political manipulation.
- The training pattern reflectslong-term radicalization, not short-term tasking:
- indoctrination over months/years
- religious framing of violence
- normalization of death and martyrdom
- Importantly:
- Participants weresegregated, controlled, and ideologically conditioned
- Some were reportedly warnednot to disclose teachings
This raises a decisive question:
- If this was a politically engineered attack, where is the evidence of political messaging within these sessions?
- Because:
No testimony indicates:
- political targets only churches (against Catholics) hotels (foreigners)
- electoral objectives
- regime-change narratives
- Cyril & Co wish to substitute these facts with a conspiracy-based motive they must explain actions of individual suicide actors and explain the background to the training sessions, military training camps (loading guns, learning online to make explosives) securing safehouses, and how all these actions fit into their regime-change conspiracy in particular the suicide in Dematagoda & Sainamarathu.
To date, no such comprehensive explanation has been presented.
- What has been Proven — Cannot Be Ignored
Multiple investigations, including the Presidential Commission and judicial findings, international investigations by the world’s top intel agencies have already established:
Violence driven by the same ideology existed before Easter & before Zaharan
- Attacks and hostility towardSufi has a historical timeline
- Spread ofWahhabi/Salafi exclusivist teachings, including within religious education spaces has been detailed in the PCoI. Extremist teachings had been spreading through informal and formal religious channels
- Aclear ideological trajectory of Zahran Hashim evolving locally, complimented with international developments calling to avenge attacks against Muslims.
- Zaharan explicitly pledged allegiance to Al Bagdadi – no one else.
Such a declaration cannot be substituted by an alternative motive which must exist across all the suicide bombers.
- Targeting of bothnon-Muslims and rival Muslim sects (including Sufis) were done before Zaharan came into the scene. Intelligence agencies had flagged over 90 reports on ISIS-linked radicalization networks
- Sri Lankan families had already traveled to Syria to join ISIS. By 2016 some 38 members from 4 families had travelled to Syria.
- These departures occurred years before 2019, establishing:
- pre-existing ideological commitment
- willingness to migrate, fight, and die under ISIS
- These individuals had:
- no connection to Sri Lankan electoral politics
- no role in any alleged regime-change plan
- Therefore Fr. Cyril & Co must answer if their departure to commit suicide were also part of a Sri Lankan political conspiracy?
- These departures establish that the willingness to die existed prior to 2019 and independent of any alleged domestic political objective.
Or does it re-establish the ideological pipeline?
- The violence aligned with ISIS ideology was relevant to both Muslims & Non-Muslims.
- Important to note that Sri Lanka was shown on the 2014 IS expansion map as part ofKhurasan Province”. In Januaty 2015 ISIS announced Wilayat Khurasan”, its South Asia wing. This inspired Tamin Chowdhury to mastermind July 2016 attacks in Dhaka killing 29 people. Zaharan wanted to do same. In fact PCOI includes this conversation in the testimony Zaharan had with team on 27 March 2019. The call for a separate Muslim homeland with the Oluvil Declaration was made in 2003 – not by Zaharan (he was only 13 years in 2003)
- This shows that extremist violence was not initiated by a single actor but existed as a broader ideological current capable of independent activation across different groups.
- The targeting of Sufi communities is critical:
- It reflects intra-religious ideological purification
- It predates Zaharan and mirrors global extremist patterns
- This establishes:
- violence driven by doctrine, not political utility
- A political conspiracy does not require sectarian purification.
An extremist ideology does.
- The formal claim of responsibility by ISIS seals the attacks within a global ideological framework. There can never be two co-joined motives that are ideologically poles apart for all of the suicide bombers.
- The conspiracy theory creates a dual-motive impossibility:
- Religious martyrdom for divine reward
- Political engineering for earthly power
- These do not compliment each other because:
- Martyrdom requires belief in afterlife reward
- Political operations require survival and outcome control
Therefore:
- Which motive did each suicide bomber follow?
And where is the evidence that ALL followed the same political objective?
Fr. Cyril cannot isolate Zaharan from all the suicide bombers – as they all were members of his group & all pledged allegiance to the ideology that Zaharan followed.
This raises a critical question for Fr. Cyril to answer:
- If the attacks were part of a domestic political conspiracy, why were they executed in exact alignment with a global ISIS operational model?
- Any alternative theory must therefore explain not only local actions but also their precise alignment with global jihadist doctrine, timing, symbolism, and execution patterns.
- Zaharan was not an isolated creation — but part of a wider ideological framework that will continue regardless of Zaharan’s existence.
- The broader implication is critical for national security:
If the ideological root is ignored and replaced with conspiracy:
- the real driver remains unaddressed
- the pipeline for future radicalization remains intact
- This creates a policy danger:
- Misdiagnosing ideology as conspiracy does not prevent the next attack—it enables it.
- Fr. Cyril must 1st disprove the ideological motive & then prove the political change motive
Ignoring the clear ideological motive and introducing a new narrative suggests:
- The attacks were carried out not primarily due to any ideology — but toengineer political change. However, you cannot replace an established motive without disproving it first and thereafter proving the new one.
Fr. Cyril must show with evidence that:
- The original ideological motive did not drive the attacks
- The new political motive was the dominant reason for carrying out the attacks
Fr. Cyril & Co must now show evidence that Zaharan abandoned:
- his ISIS allegiance
- his martyrdom ideology
- his religious justification for violence which he had been preaching
and instead acted to engineer political change at a request made by an intelligence officer?
Without disproving the original motive, the new theory is not a replacement — but an unsupported diversion.
III. Fr. Cyril & Asad Maulana & Dappala De Livera Must Now Explain
Fact 1:
The Easter attacks were not a single-person act.
Presuming Zaharan agreed to commit suicide for political change – how did all the other suicide bombers agree to the same or how did 38 Muslims who went to Syria in 2016 differ from Zaharan & Co?
Face 2:
- Multiple coordinated suicide bombers and others being trained for suicide
- Dematagoda explosion— a mother killing herself and her children
- Sainthamaruthu mass suicide (26 April 2019)— approximately 15 individuals, including women and children
These incidents are central to understanding the motive.
- In Dematagoda, a pregnant woman detonated explosives, killing herself and her children including unborn along with 3 police officers. She was trained in karate & conducted training for other women – these actions have nothing to do with regime change.
- In Sainthamaruthu, approximately 15 individuals — including women and children — chose mass suicide when confronted 4 days after the main attacks.
- These are not acts of isolated individuals acting on a political instruction.
- They reflect:
- deep ideological indoctrination
- internalized belief in martyrdom
- collective commitment to a cause beyond life
- This leads to a critical question:
- Can a political objective inspire entire families — including mothers and children — to die or even go abroad to die?
- Or does this instead confirm the presence of a shared extremist ideology?
- These incidents are particularly significant because they involve not only trained operatives but entire family units, including women and children, engaging in self-destruction.
- Such behavior is empirically consistent with ideological indoctrination models rather than externally directed political objectives.
The Question That Breaks the Narrative of Fr. Cyril & Co
If Zahran Hashim was:
directed” or used” for political purposes
Then:
Who directed all the others to commit suicide?
- Who indoctrinated entire families (over 30 persons) – to lay down their lives? The seriousness of this was brought to focus in Parliament by then Justice Minister in 2016. The SIS had prepared over 90 reports on developing ISIS ideology spreading across Sri Lanka.
- Who influenced women to die – some women were even trained in karate and arms and attended the numerous training camps Zaharan held?
- Who led children into death – free meals, free courses lured youth who were indoctrinated and threatened not to disclose what was taught?
- Who ensured ideological consistency across all actors – was the motive to change govts?
- The central weakness in the conspiracy narrative is its inability to explain why different suicide clusters acted independently yet exhibited uniform ideological justification for death.
- If a political change was the primary cause, uniform behavioral patterns across unrelated family groups would still require a core objective. We are talking about not changing political affiliations but sacrificing one’s life.
- A political theory that explainsone individual but not all participants is incomplete.
The scale of participation further weakens the conspiracy narrative vis a vis suicide (sacrificing one’s life)
The attacks and related incidents involved:
- multiple coordinated suicide bombers
- trained operatives across locations
- families embedded within extremist networks
If one individual was directed,” then:
- who directed the others?
- who ensured ideological consistency across all actors?
A theory that explains one individual but fails to explain the collective cannot stand.
- Proving the First Link Test – made in October 2021by Fr. Cyril
Before any new narrative is accepted:
Where is the first independently verifiable link
- BetweenSuresh Sallay and Zaharan that prompted Fr. Cyril Gamini to quote his name at the webinair in October 2021 (2 years after the Easter Attacks & almost 8 months after the handing of the Presidential Commission report in January 2021)
- Can Fr. Cyril prove his claims by:
- records
- communications
- intelligence logs
- direct witnesses
- In the webinair he refers to receipts – have these been presented as evidence to the PCOI or police? Let us not forget that special approval was obtained to allow a representative of the Cardinal sit throughout all proceedings making him privy to every bit of testimony given.
- In criminal evidentiary standards, the absence of a first verifiable point of contact invalidates downstream chain construction, regardless of later assertions.
Narrative linkage without origin verification constitutes inference, not proof
- Has Fr. Cyril provided a verifiable chain. It was he who made the first allegation not Asad Maulana. Father Cyril cannot make an allegation – not present verifiable evidence but expect the investigators to find the evidence or ask investigators to investigate what Asad Maulana claimed 2 years after Fr. Cyrils allegation.
- Questions to those Making the Claims
- To Dappula de Livera
He first mentioned a grand conspiracy.” just before leaving office during a private tv interview. (He was Attorney General from 29 April 2019 to May 2021)
The public must ask:
- What is thefirst piece of evidence that led to this conclusion?
- Is there documented communications?
- intelligence intercepts?
- identified actors?
- If so:
- Why werecharges not filed?
- Why was this not pursued through court?
- What action was taken while in office
- ToFr. Cyril Gamini
The October 2021 statement and recent Sinhala media address, you continue to claim:
- The attack wasnot limited to Zaharan
- There wereactors above him”
- Elements linked tointelligence connected to political actors were involved.
The public must now ask: Where is your evidence
- What is the primary evidencelinking Suresh Sallay to Zaharan that you first claimed existed in October 2021?
- Is it:
- firsthand knowledge?
- named witnesses?
- documents?
- Have these been presented to the police in 2021 after publicly making the allegation.
Are you aware that your allegation has replaced the Motive for the attacks
- What evidence shows Zaharan’sideological motive was replaced by a political objective –and how can you explain this
On Ideological Reality
How do you explain:
- attacks on Sufi before Easter and not only by Zaharan?
- the spread of extremist doctrineindependent of politics or even Zaharan and preachers who have even been banned by countries for their ideological indoctrination?
On Multi-Actor Suicides
- Who influenced:
- the Dematagoda pregnant mother to commit suicide and even commit her 2 children?
- the Sainthamaruthu group who committed suicide with 6 children?
- Were all of them:
- part of a political regime change operation?
- or part of a shared ideological belief?
On Timing
- Why did your allegation emerge:
- 8 months after the Commission report (Jan 2021 → Oct 2021)?
- Did you present this as evidence to the Commission, if not why?
- ToAsad Maulana
Through Channel 4, you claim:
- You were asked toarrange contact between Zaharan & Suresh Sallay by Pillayan
- The attacks were tocreate chaos and enable regime change
But your claims create direct contradictions:
On Introduction
- If you introduced the two parties:
- does this not prove theydid not previously know each other
Fr Cyril claims that Suresh knew Zaharan.
If so, he could have directly contacted Zaharan there was no need for an Asad Maulana to arrange a meeting.
- This creates a direct contradiction with earlier claims.
- In 2021, Fr. Cyril Gamini implied that Zaharan and Suresh Sallay already knew each other
- In 2023, Asad Maulana claims he introduced them
- Both cannot be true.
- Therefore:
- Which version is correct?
- What evidence supports either claim?
- If neither can be proven, both collapse.
On connections to Zaharan
- What is your connection with Zaharan and how were you able to contact him when he was a fugitive and on the run from authorities.
On February 2018 Meeting
- A further evidentiary problem arises regarding the physical possibility of the alleged interactions.
- At the time that you claim to have arranged the meeting – Feb 2018:
- Suresh Sallay was not present in Sri Lanka – do you have travel documents to prove he arrived in Sri Lanka for the meeting?
- There was no house in the estate in Feb 2018 – a house was built only in Aug-Sept 2018
On Easter Sunday call
- You claim he called you on the day of the Easter Attacks
- Suresh Sallay was in India – do you have phone proof of such a call from India to Colombo?
On Intermediary Role
- If direct contact existed between Suresh Sallay & Zaharan:
why was an intermediary (Asad) needed at all?
On Motive
- What evidence replaces:
- Zaharan’s ISIS-linked ideological motive
with
- a political objective?
On Timing
- Why did this information emerge:
- only in 2023?
- in an asylum context?
More contradictions
- Another fundamental contradiction arises from established intelligence activity prior to the attacks.
- Zaharan Hashim was under investigation by the CID prior to 2019
- CID took over Zaharan’s investigation from 9 July 2018 onwards
- His network had already been flagged through intelligence reports
- Multiple warnings — including foreign intelligence alerts — identified him and his group
- This leads to a critical inconsistency:
- If Zaharan was being controlled” or handled,” by an individual on behalf of an opposition party, while he was not holding any command position nor was even in the country why did he help the party in power to come to power:
- Was this why inspite of reports, warnings – he was never arrested?
- An individual cannot logically be both:
- an intelligence-controlled asset
and
- a known target of active intelligence pursuit
- This contradiction must be addressed.
- In criminal evidentiary standards, the absence of a first verifiable point of contact invalidates downstream chain construction, regardless of later assertions.
Narrative linkage without origin verification constitutes inference, not proof.
Therefore, the first allegation was made by Fr. Cyril in 2021 – this requires he present his evidence instead of asking investigators to investigate claims made by Asad Maulana 2 years after Fr. Cyrils claim.
Moreover, in the recent media address by Fr. Cyril – he claimed anyone arrested is not necessarily guilty and guilt is decided by the Courts. He must then explain why after his claim in October 2021, when Suresh Sallay filed complaint with CID & a defamation case – he evaded and appealed to court against arrest. His actions contradict his own public claim.
- The Section 127 Risk: When Allegations suprecede Truth
Under Sri Lanka’s legal framework:
- Statements can be recorded asvoluntary
- Without verification of truth at that stage
This creates a danger:
Allegations can:
- enter the system
- influence investigations
- affect custody
before being proven in court years later.
This makes it essential that:
The burden of proof remains on those making the allegations
The risk is not the recording of statements, but elevating these unverified statements to reconstruct the conspiracy narrative.
This creates a legal distortion where procedural admissibility is mistaken for factual verification.
VII. The Supreme Court and Established Responsibility
The Supreme Court identified:
- failures to act
• lapses in coordination
• negligence in preventing the attacks
Any attempt to move from:
must be supported by new, direct evidence while disproving the established theory.
This distinction is critical in law.
No such evidence has been presented.
It is legally essential to distinguish systemic failure from intentional orchestration.
Even demonstrable lapses in intelligence coordination do not, in themselves, establish the existence of a hidden controlling conspiracy without direct evidence of coordination or instruction.
No amount of conspiracy theory can remove the fact that
- warnings were given –
- circulars were despatched and
- even at the 11th hour those in positions could have prevented people entering the churches as well as informed hotels to beef up security.
- This is what none of the conspiracy theorists can deny.
- Unlike other terror attacks – repeated warnings were given, these were not new warnings as the security apparatus were aware of Zaharan and the CID was directly involved in investigations from July 2018 onwards.
- Therefore, when foreign intel gave names of the targets and even the identities of the suicide bombers everyone who got the message cannot escape accountability by bringing names of people who were not in the country to pass blame.
VIII. Where the New Narrative Collapses
All three narratives must answer two questions:
- Where is the first proven link?
- Who explains the actions of ALL actors — not just Zaharan?
Because:
- If the first link is missing → the chain collapses
- If the motive cannot explain all actors → the theory collapses
- Any theory seeking to replace ideological causation with political orchestration must satisfy a higher evidentiary threshold because it introduces an additional causal layer not supported by the original investigative record.
Without independently verified linkage at every stage, such theories remain speculations rather than reconstructed facts.
Evidence Must Match the Claim
The Easter attacks were:
- ideologically driven
- collectively executed
- supported by a documented trajectory of radicalization
Any attempt to:
- introduce new actors
- replace motive
- construct a conspiracy
must meet the same legal standard:
- Evidence beyond assertion
- Consistency beyond narrative
- Proof beyond timing
Until then, the public is entitled to ask:
Where is the first proven link first spoken about by Fr. Cyril in October 2021?
A theory that cannot simultaneously explain:
- the global ISIS alignment
- the pre-existing ideological network not just in Sri Lanka but globally
- the large number of coordinated attackers
- the participation of entire families
- the mass suicide events after the attacks
- and the documented intelligence warnings including foreign
is not a complete explanation.
It is an incomplete narrative attempting to override established facts.
To date, no such comprehensive explanation has been presented to deny the ideological motive and showcase the political motive was superior.
THE TEST THAT CANNOT BE AVOIDED
Any narrative seeking to replace the established account of the Easter attacks must pass three non-negotiable tests:
- The Link Test
Where is the first verifiable, independently proven connection between the alleged actors claimed in October 2021?
Without this, the entire chain collapses.
- The Motive Test
What evidence proves that a political objective replaced the clearly established ideological motive — acrossallattackers, not just one individual?
- The Collective Participation Test
Who can explain the actions of:
- multiple coordinated suicide bombers
- entire families willing to die
- the Dematagoda explosion
- the Sainthamaruthu mass suicide
- prior departures to ISIS
A theory that cannot explain all participants is not a theory — it is a partial narrative.
The Easter attacks demonstrate:
- ideological indoctrination
- collective commitment to martyrdom
- alignment with global ISIS doctrine
To override this, any alternative claim must provide:
- direct evidence — not inference
- consistency — not contradiction
- completeness — not selective focus
Until then, the public is entitled to ask:
Where is the proof?
Where is the first link made by Fr. Cyril in October 2021?
Shenali D Waduge
