Colombo: Sri Lanka’s police chief resigned from his post on Friday, two days after President Maithripala Sirisena asked him to step down over the security establishment’s failure to avert the deadly Easter bombings.
Sirisena, who is also the defence minister, said Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara resigned over failures which led to the attacks on three hotels and three churches on Sunday that claimed 253 lives.
“The IGP has resigned. He has sent his resignation to the acting defense secretary. I’ll nominate a new IGP soon,” the president said.
The police chief’s resignation came a day after the country’s defence secretary Hemasiri Fernando handed over his resignation letter to the president. Sirisena had asked Fernando and Jayasundara to quit after their failure to prevent the blasts despite having prior intelligence.
Sirisena said the intelligence supplied by a friendly nation was not shared with him by officials. “All they have done was to exchange letters among themselves,” he said.
“I asked both police chief and defence secretary why the information was not shared with me, they remained silent,” he said. He said the security lapse was also due to the current government’s weakening of intelligence operations.
This is a reference to the arrest and trials against a handful of military intelligence officers who were responsible for attacks and murder of journalists, abductions and ransom taking, he said. Meanwhile, Sri Lankan Islamist extremist Zahran Hashim, said to be the top leader of an IS linked local militant group that carried out the Easter Sunday bombings, died in the blast at the Shangri-La hotel, President Maithripala Sirisena said Friday.
Hashim, the head of extremist group National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ), led the attack on the hotel and was accompanied by a second bomber identified as Ilham Ahmed Ibrahim. Hashim was killed during the bombings, the president told reporters here.
The president said the information came from military intelligence and was based in part on CCTV footage recovered from the scene. Hashim appeared in a video released by the Islamic State group after they claimed the bombings, but his whereabouts after the blasts were not immediately clear. In the video, the round-faced radical cleric was seen dressed in a black tunic headscarf and posing with a rifle. The country’s Muslim community had been warning about the firebrand cleric for years.
However, it was the ISIS video that provided solid evidence about the Sri Lankan cleric’s role in terrorism and Easter Sunday bombings. Hashim was believed to be 40 years old and a loner. He hailed from the east coast region of Batticaloa. He said the power struggle in his government was because he had objected to the government’s weakening of the security forces. Sirisena said he would soon set up a Joint Operations Command to combat terrorism and each and every house would be checked for the safety of all citizens. Top officials have acknowledged that Sri Lanka received intelligence about possible terror strikes ahead of the attacks, but both Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that they did not receive the information.
The Sri Lankan police which wrongly identified an American Muslim woman as a suspect in the deadly bombings on Easter Sunday has apologised for the goof-up, according to media reports on Friday.
The police on Thursday issued a flyer with the names and photos of six persons — three men and three women — wanted in connection with the attacks that killed 253 people. On the flyer, a photograph of Amara Majeed was put wrongly by Sri Lankan authorities, identifying her as a suspect linked to the bloodshed. The name attached to the picture was Abdul Cader Fathima Khadiya – but the picture was of Baltimore-born Majeed, whose parents are from Sri Lanka. (Agencies)
