• Sirisena says will take years for truth to come out
• Champika Ranawaka queries Rajapaksas involvement with NTJ members

Ruling United National Party (UNP) Parliamentarian (MP) Vajira Abeywardena claimed that it is not possible to find the root cause of the Easter Sunday terror attacks of 21 April 2019, since the related suspects (the suicide bombers) have died.

Speaking at a media briefing yesterday (20), he said that a group of persons who were mentally trained for suicide had carried out the said terror attacks, and that the related suspects (suicide bombers) had all died by now. "No information is being revealed now. There is no way to find the root cause of these attacks. There is no point in questioning three-wheeler drivers and managers of hotels where they (suspects) had stayed. They might say that the suspects were wearing a green, blue or red shirt, but it does not help in uncovering the root cause."

Meanwhile, the former President and incumbent Opposition MP, during whose Presidential tenure the Easter Sunday terror attacks took place, Maithripala Sirisena yesterday said that it may take years for the truth behind the terror attacks to be uncovered. "There are several investigations related to this incident. They have not yet been concluded. It is not possible to think that the root cause of this will be revealed in four years since the incident. It may take several years. That is the true story," he said. When the media queried regarding the allegations levelled against him by the Catholic Church, Sirisena said that it is the Judiciary that should decide on such matters. "The Church says various things from time to time, one in the morning and another in the evening. There are the Judiciary and law enforcement agencies in this country. They will do the needful. I have not been made an accused with regard to this incident. I have had to be held responsible for what the officers under me as the President did."

Meanwhile, Opposition MP Patali Champika Ranawaka yesterday said that it is problematic as to why members of the National Thowheed Jamaat’h (NTJ), the latter the group that launched the terror attacks, received the protection of the Government led by the Rajapaksas (a reference to the Government led by then President Mahinda Rajapaksa). "Rajapaksa said that it was done to obtain information. The accusation made by traditional Muslims that the NTJ was used to tame the main Islamic institutions in the country is also serious. They (the Rajapaksas) must have used them (the NTJ) or intended to use them when needed. The NTJ's support for then Presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019 confirms that the Rajapaksa loyalists still had unblemished faith in the Thowheed Jamaat’h movement," he claimed in a statement issued on the event of the fourth anniversary of the terror attacks.

On 21 April 2019, three churches and three luxury hotels in Colombo were targeted in a series of coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide bombings. Later that day, another two bomb explosions took place at a house in Dematagoda and a lodge in Dehiwala. All eight of the suicide bombers in the attacks were Sri Lankan citizens associated with the NTJ founded by one of the suicide bombers, Mohamed Cassim Mohamed Zahran, alias Zahran Hashim.