Emergency regulations came into force in Sri Lanka at midnight local time following the attacks. The government’s Security Council has decided to grant far-reaching powers to the military and police, the office of President Maithripala Sirisena announced.
Sirisena convened a team of three to investigate the attacks and to present a first report in three weeks. The international police organisation Interpol announced that it would send a team of experts to Sri Lanka. The panel will include specialists in crime scene investigation, explosives, counter-terrorism and victim identification.
“Information to identify individuals associated with these attacks could come from anywhere in the world,” Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock said, according to the statement. Here, the organization’s global network and databases proved essential. The database of stolen and lost travel documents is already being checked to identify possible links or international traces.
Islamist group NTJ suspected
Police say 24 suspects have now been arrested and are currently being questioned. All are from Sri Lanka, according to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
The Sri Lankan government blames the local Islamist group National Thowheeth Jamaath (NTJ) for the series of attacks, which first appeared in December, when it was accused of damaging Buddhist statues, which sparked an outcry among the largely Buddhist population. NTJ leader Abdul Razik has been detained several times and is accused of inciting religious unrest.
According to the government, the assassins had support from abroad on Easter Sunday: “There was an international network without which these attacks would not have succeeded,” said cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka wanted to get to the bottom of the terrorists’ links abroad with the help of the international community.
At least 290 dead, more than 500 injured
At least 270 people were killed in several bombings targeting Christian churches and tourist shelters. According to the Ministry of Defence, they are the back of a total of seven suicide bombers – it is not known whether they are among the dead by the authorities. More than 500 other people were injured.
Among the dead are mainly Sri Lankans and at least 35 foreigners. One of them is an American citizen who, according to the Foreign Office, also held a German passport. Nothing was known about other German victims. Major tour operators reported that their guests in Sri Lanka were in good life.
Social networks unreachable
The attacks and subsequent tightened security measures are currently leading to restrictions on the island, which is a popular tourist destination. In addition to a nightly curfew, authorities had temporarily cut off access to Facebook’s social networks and messenger apps such as Viber and Snapchat. The statement said panic and false news about the attacks had spread.
The state of emergency is likely to be familiar to Sri Lankans from the time of the 26-year civil war that ended in 2009. Security forces were then allowed to search homes without judicial permission. Suspects could be detained for three months on the orders of the Ministry of Defence without presenting them to a judge.
With the end of the war, the ethnic tensions between Sinhalese and Tamils did not completely subside – since there are Christians in both population groups, some of them were regarded as mediators. Islamist terror was previously unknown in the island nation.
