April 21, 2019 or Easter Sunday that year will go down in the history as one of the darkest days that saw a dastardly crime against humanity when terrorists with a Muslim tag killed more than 250 innocent people and wounded hundreds more in three churches and three tourist hotels in Sri Lanka.
It was a barbaric attack against human civilization, since the attackers targeted a particular community just because the latter were of a different faith and nothing else.
The world has witnessed man-made calamities such as the atomic bomb attacks on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan where hundreds of thousands of people perished; napalm and chemical weapon attacks in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Southern Iraq due to which thousands of people are still suffering; millions of people driven away from their original habitats in Palestine and hundreds of bomb attacks in northern and southern Sri Lanka. However, irrespective of the difference between the number of human lives claimed in these attacks and the Easter Sunday attacks against the Christians by a group who claimed to be Muslims, the motive was same -- to eliminate innocent men, women and children.
All previous crimes against humanity, whether it is committed in South East Asia or Middle-East or Africa or any other region in the world, the perpetrators had a purpose or a comprehensible target, whether we accept it or not. However, an attempt to comprehend the purpose of the terrorists who targeted hundreds of innocent men, women and children in the three churches and three tourist hotels in Sri Lanka exactly a year ago on one of their holiest days would definitely draw a blank. The Islamic teachings and history run counter to the common perception that the terrorists wanted to attain paradise by killing members of other faiths.
Besides, the normal police investigations into the Easter Sunday attacks, which killed more than 250 people and double that number injured; several other investigations were also launched by the previous government during whose term the crime was committed and by the current government. The former President had appointed a special Presidential Commission while the then Parliament in which the United National Party (UNP) led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had majority power had appointed a select committee. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa too has appointed a special commission. However, various people have alleged that some of these investigations have been politically motivated.
It is noteworthy that some officials responsible for national security have given evidence before the Presidential Commission appointed by the former President and the Parliamentary Select Committee in a manner that suited to the commission or the select committee before which they were testifying. The commission had absolved the then President of the responsibility while the select committee had held him responsible. The PSC had become a platform for political as well as communal mudslinging and some individuals had used it to trumpet their capabilities while some others had used it to air their communal, religious and sectarian prejudices.
Meanwhile, three important questions are still left unanswered, despite Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith having forgiven the criminals who killed and maimed hundreds of people last year. Are there any culprits who were directly or indirectly responsible for the heinous crimes committed on Easter Sunday last year still at large? If so, what was the real motive of the attack? Why didn’t the whole state machinery including politicians and professionals in the relevant field that had gained a vast amount of experience during the 30-year war failed to professionally respond to the precisely accurate intelligence reports on the attacks? Given the power of politics in Sri Lanka in superseding and manipulating everything, it is doubtful that the country would ever receive answers to these questions.
The ideology that had led the terrorists to kill innocent people seems to be the perception that their faith or community is superior to others. However, the killer disease, COVID-19 has again proved and has still been proving perfectly well that all human beings are equal. Yet, some groups in Sri Lanka and in other countries attempted to create divisions even using this deadly disease.
Countries, nations, religions, races and communities may have differences among them due to their very nature while civilized people are those who strive to see unity in this diversity in the world and not the ones who create more divisions among human beings.
