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CID yet to obtain Court order to re-exhume remains

11 May 2021

By Yoshitha Perera   Investigators attached to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) have not yet been able to obtain a Court order concerning the re-exhumation of the remains of the persons killed in the Sainthamaruthu blast on 26 April 2019. The Court order would give the legal force to conduct deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) tests to determine whether Pulasthini Rajendran alias Sarah Jasmine, the wife of one of the Easter Sunday suicide bombers (involved in bombing the St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya), was in fact killed in the blast. According to Police Media Spokesman Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Ajith Rohana: “The CID would pursue a Court order within the next few days.” Responding to a query by The Sunday Morning, DIG Rohana said that while he had checked with the relevant CID investigators with regard to the Court order, he had been informed that the CID is still looking into the matter. “The investigation has commenced with regard to the Sainthamaruthu blast, but a Court order is required to re-exhume the remains of the persons killed in the blast, in order to conduct DNA tests regarding Sarah Jasmine’s death.” Attempts to contact CID Director Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rohan Premaratne in this regard proved futile. Earlier, at a media briefing, Minister of Public Security Dr. Sarath Weerasekera informed that it was impossible to state with certainty as to whether Sarah Jasmine had in fact been killed in the Sainthamaruthu blast, and that therefore there is a need to re-exhume the remains of the individuals who had been killed in the blast, in order to conduct DNA tests again. However, multiple attempts made by The Sunday Morning to contact Minister Dr. Weerasekera to obtain further details on how matters are progressing with regard to the matter proved futile. On 7 June 2019, the remains of four suicide bombers who had died in the explosion at their safe house in Sainthamaruthu had been exhumed, as the samples of the corpses that had initially been submitted to the Government Analyst had decayed.  A total of 15 persons including six men, three women, and six children were killed during the Sainthamaruthu safe house explosion on 26 April 2019, and the deceased were subsequently buried on 2 May 2019 at a public cemetery in Ampara. Samples of their corpses had been sent to the Government Analyst for further investigations. The Police had earlier obtained a Court order from the Kalmunai Magistrate’s Court to exhume the remains of the four suicide bombers, stating that the samples that had been submitted to the Government Analyst had decayed. However, following the exhumation, DNA tests that were carried out in comparison with the DNA of Sarah Jasmine’s mother had not matched with the remains of the persons killed during the blast. This was then informed to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Easter Sunday terror attacks by former Ampara Police Officer-In-Charge SSP Samantha Wijesekera. It was also informed to the CoI by the Chief Inspector attached to the CoI's Police Unit Arjuna Mahinkanda that the Police had found sufficient evidence that Sarah Jasmine had fled to India by sea in September 2019.


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