PCoI probing Easter Sunday attacks no change in mandate with appointment of new government

Commission Members visit St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya

• The coordinated attacks on three churches and four major hotels carried by an Islamic extremist group

By Yoshitha Perera   

There was no change in Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) probing Easter Sunday Commission’s mandate with appointment of new government, official from the Commission told Daily Mirror yesterday.   

The official said that a Commission is probing into the deadly terror attacks occurred on last year’s Easter Sunday and the incidents linked with the terror attacks, according to the Commission’s mandate.   

Members of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) probing Easter Sunday attacks on Saturday visited the St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya, Negombo, a church which exposed to a coordinated terror attack on April 21, 2019.   

The coordinated attacks on three churches and four major hotels carried by an Islamic extremist group named National Thawheed Jamaath (NTJ), the local organisation which is believed to have had links with Islamic State (IS) organisation.   

Two of them were Catholic churches, St. Anthony’s Shrine in Kochchikade, Colombo and St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya. Another blast occurred at the Zion Church in an Eastern coastal city of Batticaloa.   

A suicide bombing at St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya occurred at 8.45 am on April 21, 2019 and the attack was carried out by a hardcore NTJ follower Mohammed Hastun.   
It was initially reported that 93 people had been killed in the bombing that day, and by October 2019, it was revealed that a total of 115 individuals, including 27 children, had been killed in the bombing. Nearly 350 people were injured in the attack.     

• Members of the PCoI probing Easter Sunday attacks on Saturday visited the St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya