Easter Sunday terror attacks: CID, TID conduct probes at eight locations, 268 suspects arrested

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) have been conducting investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks which took place on April 21, 2019 at eight locations in Sri Lanka and 268 suspects have so far been arrested, said Police Spokesman DIG Ajith Rohana.

He said that 268 suspects had been arrested in connection with the attacks and 195 suspects have been remanded on court orders. In addition, 73 suspects have been detained as per the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) at the CID and the TID.

The Police Spokesman noted that several investigations had already been completed successfully, especially with regard to the eight attacks which took place at Kochchikade, Katuwapitiya, Batticaloa, Shangri-La Hotel, Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Kingsbury Hotel and the Dehiwala blast.

Further, the other connected cases that are related to religious extremism are being conducted by the CID and the TID. However, referring to a news article that had been published in the Lankadeepa Newspaper on Wednesday he said, “that article mentioned that seven employees of the metal factory owned by the father of one of the suicide bombers had been released by the Courts. These ten suspects are minor employees of the metal factory and they had been arrested by the Wellampitiya Police on mere suspicion, for interrogation and they had been released after three days of being arrested. One suspect had been detained in remand prison. However, we have collected evidence with regard to the incident and we have arrested 2,068 suspects in this connection and their links and other criminal acts have been disclosed and the charges could be framed against the actual suspects.” He added that the ten released suspects were just minor employees of the metal factory who had no connection with the incident and that was why they were released.

(Source: Daily News – By Camelia Nathaniel)