Our leaders never viewed the Easter Sunday crimes as a national disaster

• What a lot of public funds would have been spent on these local investigations is anybody’s guess

Another Easter Sunday -- the seventh after that fateful Easter Sunday which fell on April 21, 2019,  has passed two days ago. Ironically,  people still debate many unanswered questions about that fateful day when over 270 innocent men,  women and children were killed by a group of fanatical Muslim terrorists.

The fact that  investigations into this brutal crime have been dragging on for seven years without finding an answer to the question who did it,  is an indictment of the political leaders who have ruled the country since. Had there been a truly independent investigative mechanism without political interference in the country, it would by now have found answers to all questions raised so far. 

An amazing number of investigations by various mechanisms have been completed,  apart from the ongoing one by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) about this macabre crime targeting Christians on a day sacrosant to them. Altogether,  seven local investigations including two court cases have so far been launched,  and it is said that law enforcement authorities of six foreign nations have produced reports after conducting probes into it. 

Two more investigations proposed by former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, a Parliamentary Select Committee on a statement made by former Attorney General Dapppula de Livera,  and a probe by the Scotland Yard never saw  light of  day.

The seven local investigations included three Presidential committees -- (one appointed by President Maithripala Sirisena and two by President Wickremesinghe, a Presidential Commission by President Sirisena, a Parliamentary Select Committee, a case over 12 fundamental rights petitions, a case before a special Trial-at Bar at the Colombo High Court against 25 individuals.  President Wickremesinghe once said that investigative agencies of six foreign countries, namely the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the UK police and other authoritative bodies of Australia, India, China and Pakistan have all issued reports on the attack.

What a lot of public funds would have been spent on these local investigations is anybody’s guess. Yet,  people are still arguing about  the mastermind of this crime. From the beginning,  many people were seen attempting to use these investigations, except for the two court cases, to implicate their political adversaries,  and to prove their political and communal ideologies or views. 

For instance, the Parliamentary Select committee wasted a lot of its time questioning the witnesses about the private university established by former Eastern Province Governor M.L.A.M. Hisbullah, the date palms planted in Kanttankudy and the Arabic sign boards in the same area, rather than dedicating its time to find out whether any political conspiracy prompted these attacks,  and who gave the terrorists the suicide bomb technology. And time was also wasted in discussing the Madrasas, the Muslim religious schools in Sri Lanka some of which are over a century old, the Quazi courts which have been established under  Sri Lankan law,  when these institutions had nothing to do with the suicide bomb attacks. 

Sometimes the investigations were conducted due to a public outcry that did not have any legal grounds. Thus, some people including politicians were arrested but only to be released after  being detained until the public outcry was subsided. 

Leaders of main political parties who failed to see this crime as an issue that should have been encountered by them as a nation were in a haste to politically exploit the situation.  They treated this as a political windfall to them. 

The Opposition of the day, despite accurate prior intelligence having been received by  law enforcement authorities about  the terrorist attacks, wanted to blame that weakening of the intelligence apparatuses by the ruling party for the crime and to assert that they were the ones who can ensure the security in the country. On the other hand, the ruling party which had by then been sharply divided put the blame on each other. Thus, while the President appointed a committee to investigate the incident,  the Prime Minister too,  got the parliament to appoint a select committee for the same purpose. Conflicting conspiracy theories further aggravated the situation, while the victims still question who did this to us,  and why.

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