Five years have lapsed since the brutal suicide bombings carried out by extremists targeting Catholic and Christian worshipers on April 21, 2019 (Easter Sunday). On that unfortunate day, two hundred and seventy-three (273) people, including Christian and Catholic devotees, lost their lives, and more than five hundred people became fully or partially disabled by the inhumane suicide bomb attacks that were carried out on three churches and several tourist hotels.
As the National People’s Power, we would like to bring to the attention of the people that the government is responsible for the lives that were lost, the members of the families who were made helpless due to the attack, and the property that was destroyed due to the attack. Thus, a question remains as to whether that responsibility has been properly fulfilled so far, and we emphasize that a government of the National People’s Power will implement the law to the letter without bias or favor regarding these matters and take proper legal action against individuals who were directly or indirectly involved in the attack.
1. The Easter bombings is a conspiracy by a group to achieve a narrow political objective by creating discord between ethnicities, causing communal riots and massive loss of life and property. The masterminds and those who planed this heinous crime must be brought to justice and doing so will be a top priority of the government of National People’s Power.
2. We will take legal action against those who failed to prevent the Easter attack despite having received sufficient information about it, those who interfered with the investigation that was carried out regarding the attack in order to protect the real conspirators of the crime, those officers from the security forces who prevented legal action being taken against those responsible, the President, the Prime Minister, the cabinet and all political authorities who were responsible.
3. i. Criminal charges will be filed against political authorities and government officials who were found to have violated the fundemental rights in cases filed by the Easter attack victims in the Supreme Court after due investigation.
Ii. Criminal charges will be filed, regardless of rank or status, against the political authorities and government officials included in the recommendations of the Presidential commission of inquiry appointed to probe in to the Easter attack.
iii. Criminal charges will also be filed against the political authorities and public officials responsible for the attack based on recommendations of a Special Investigation Commission to be appointed by a future government of the National People’s Power
4. We will facilitate and take steps to establish a mechanism to conclude hearingof cases pending before Courts relating to the Easter attack expeditiously on a priority basis.
5. We will take steps to bring back all the criminals who have fled the country who has any connection with the attack, to investigate through them in order to discover those who planned and conspired to carry out the said attack and to bring them before the law expeditiously, regardless oftheir rank or status.
6. We will introduce an appropriate compensation scheme for the lives that were lost and disabled and for properties which were destroyed due to the said attack. Further a special psychosocial support program would be designed and launched to help victims of the attack to assist them to recover from their traumatic experiences.
7. As some aspects of the investigations remain incomplete swift action will be taken to complete the process of investigations based on material disclosed so far from Commission reports and other relevant sources.We would like to inform the people of Sri Lanka, that a government of the National People’s Power, will establish a Special Investigation Commission with full judicial powers with the aim to conduct further investigations to ascertain the truth,to deliver justice to victims and to bring perpetrators to justice.Based on the findings of the said Commission and all other material available from different sources, steps will be taken to file criminal charges against individuals who conspired and orchestrated the attack or aided or abated the crime to be committed, regardless of their status in order to achieve justice to the victims of the Easter attack.
