{"id":101458,"date":"2020-04-24T00:03:04","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T06:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=101458"},"modified":"2020-04-23T00:04:54","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T07:04:54","slug":"criminal-negligence-sri-lankas-easter-sunday-parliamentary-select-committee-cheated-the-nation-the-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/04\/24\/criminal-negligence-sri-lankas-easter-sunday-parliamentary-select-committee-cheated-the-nation-the-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminal Negligence: Sri Lanka\u2019s Easter Sunday Parliamentary Select Committee cheated the Nation & the Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On 21st<\/sup> April 2019\nmultiple suicide attacks claimed the lives of over 300 innocent persons. These\nattacks took place despite 97 intel warnings from India the last coming hours\nbefore the first suicide bombing, giving venue, names of suicide bombers and\neven their phone numbers. No other country would have allowed the leaders\nelected to, protect the Nation & people, to simply walk scot free without\nbeing held to account. Simply, relegating responsibility to failures of the\nofficials and intelligence units and washing off one\u2019s own actions by\nappointing a dubious and controversial Parliamentary Select Committee is an\naffront to the common man but warrants history to record this debacle and the\ncharacters that either aided and abetted the criminals or simply watched the crime\ntake place, both instances that denote nothing but criminal negligence.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany & Japan were defeated in World War 2 by the Allies. The Nuremberg Trials and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal did not have a single German or Japanese on the panel. But, in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks ministers whose names were allegedly linked to the suicide bombers were not only seated at the press conference that saw yahapalana Ministers laugh off the heinous crime but the same Minister sat as a panel member at the Parliamentary Select Committee as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/samantha.weeramanthri.9\/videos\/1116869251988745\/\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All of the people in places of\npower claim they did not know \u2013 the President says he was clueless, the PM says\nsame and the envoy representing the world\u2019s most powerful nation says her\ncountry too did not have prior knowledge of attacks. The then Army Commander\ntold the Parliamentary Select committee he came to know about the incident only\nfrom social media! But India had given 97 warnings and by letters too.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pre-Easter Sunday incidents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a government is created by\ngluing nefarious actors with questionable record of anti-national actions, it\nwas like watching a volcano about to erupt. Incompetent officials put in place,\nthe competent sidelined, the systems and units placed to protect the nation\nvirtually neutralized or asked to lay low or closed down completely, systems\nopened to even foreigners to poke their noses was what was taking place post\nregime change in 2015. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The appeasing policy adopted and\nthe attitude that the minorities ruled and the majority are insignificant did\nnot help matters for it encouraged all sorts of destabilizing objectives to\ndescend and commence their agendas across Sri Lanka. They did so knowing the\nleaders and their stooges were looking the other way and officials were also\nindirectly told to do the same. The crimes of omissions that took place from\n2015 is testimony. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special mention must be made of\n37-year old Mohamed Razak Taslim of Mawanella who ended up shot by Zaharan\u2019s\nmen and today lies paralyzed. His crime was to put country before religion and\nhis punishment resulted in being shot at. In December 2018 a number of Buddhist\nstatues were getting vandalized. It was an obvious attempt to inflame communal\ntensions. Investigations and search for the 2 brothers linked to the vandalism led\nto another stash of 100kg explosives in a coconut grove in January 2019. This\nwas no small number and it should have alerted authorities that something was\nbrewing in the air. These suspicions should have been connected with the intel\nbriefings sent by India. Taslim was shot in March 2019 while sleeping. Taslim\nhad cried when he heard the news of Easter Sunday telling his wife \u2018I told you\nsomething bad was going to happen\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another clue escaped attention.\nZaharan\u2019s brother injured himself while experimenting with explosives months\nbefore Easter Sunday and had been secretly brought to a private medical clinic\nin Colombo and was treated. No one reported the incident to the local police\nwho would have investigated how he had injured his hand from explosives. This\nwould certainly have led to Zaharan and his hideouts and perhaps even prevented\nthe Easter Sunday attacks. Has this doctor been questioned for hiding Zaharan\u2019s\nbrother until his recovery? Aiding and abetting a terrorist is equal to taking\npart in terror. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post-Easter Sunday\nfindings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within 24hours the security\nservices were able to nab over 50 suspects highlighting that the systems were\nwell in place and only orders were lacking. Then came the shocking revelations\nof detonators, explosives, swords, even military uniforms found across the\nisland even in mosques. A UNP Colombo Municipal Councilor was also arrested in\npossession of 46 swords, while another Deputy Major in Negombo was arrested in\npossession of a sword, dagger & 37 mobile phone batteries. As the country\nwatched in shock Rs.1.2million was found under the bed of a not-so-well to do\nhouse in Weligama. Security forces also traced vehicles registered under the\nnames of the suicide bombers\/wives and relations. In Kalpitiya a man was\narrested with 22 NICs of women (29Ap2019), while antoher was arrested with army\nuniforms in Lunugala with 18 passports. Quite a number of foreign Muslims were\nalso arrested during search operations. In fact, on 2nd<\/sup> May media\ndisclosed that Fathima Ilham the wife of spice owner Ibrahim\u2019s suicide bomber\nson who also blew herself up in Dematagoda is the daughter of Alaludeen jewelers\n& Alahudeen is Bathurdeen\u2019s uncle as well as Treasurer of ACMC. What is the\nstatus of these arrests?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arrests were many but\nloopholes in law and lethargy of the system cannot prevent or deny justice to\ninnocent people who became guinea pigs of bigger and powerful agendas \u2013\npolitical or religious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yahapalana leaders were made to\nbelieve that the minorities helped them to power and whatever the minorities\ndid they should not object or disagree or come in their way. Some Ministers\nincluding the yahapalana President have openly admitted this \u2018we cannot anger\nthe minorities\u2019. So every ill happening was always ignored and when authorities\nand officials saw the body language and actions of their leaders, naturally they\ntoo thought it pointless bringing any national issue to them knowing what their\nreactions would be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this was made obvious with\nthe co-sponsorship of the Geneva-Resolution in October 2015 that virtually\nsealed Sri Lanka\u2019s fate and accepted Sri Lanka\u2019s guilt in front of the world by\na bunch of people who never sided with Sri Lanka\u2019s Armed Forces and never\nprovided even moral support to end LTTE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In this scenario of the\ngovernment that was ruling, the policies they were adopting and the general\nattitude towards protection of the country, should we be surprised when people\ndirectly linked with the suicide bombers and their families sit at the\nimmediate post-Easter Sunday press conference and laugh at what happened on 21\nApril 2019? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further rubbing salt to the wound\nthey are even selected to be on the panel of the Parliamentary Select Committee\nto be grinning away at the cross examination of officials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can we expect justice from yahapalana\nfor the crime that took place purely because of negligence? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together these controversial\nfigures found salvation in wiping all blame from their own hands and passing it\noff to the officials and intelligence units who were made to sit and disclose\nthe most confidential of state secrets and relayed publicly to all and sundry.\nThese brave officials answered as best as they could and their magnanimity was\nsuch that they did not pass blame like their leaders and accepted blame for what\ntheir leaders should have been responsible for. If a Committee passes blame to\nofficials and holds them responsible absolving leaders of all blame, do we need\nto elect them, do we need to spend millions on maintaining them and their\nfamilies. We can allocate that money to the officials! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is disgusting to see the\nyahapalana President and Prime Minister behave as if they had no role to play\nin the debacle that took place. The manner that they can laugh off their role\nand see fit to pass blame is incomprehensive. Both have got away \u2013 one with a\n800m house and the other unashamedly continuing to fool the masses still. Shameless\nthey want to both continue in politics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What took place or what led to\nEaster Sunday is a culmination of bad policies based on horse trading and\nbartering for one\u2019s personal gain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guinea pigs for Easter Sunday blame became the security and intel officers and the public must never forget or forgive every person linked to what took place on 21 April 2019 Easter Sunday<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shenali D Waduge<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 21st April 2019 multiple suicide attacks claimed the lives of over 300 innocent persons. These attacks took place despite 97 intel warnings from India the last coming hours before the first suicide bombing, giving venue, names of suicide bombers and even their phone numbers. No other country would have allowed the leaders elected to, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1498,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}