The Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) probing the Easter Sunday terror attacks has been informed that India was a safe haven for Leader of the banned National Thowheed Jammat (NTJ) Zahran Hashim and his associates.
Testifying before the PCoI yesterday, former Director of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police (SDIG) Nilantha Jayawardena said Zahran and his associates had reportedly traveled to India several times.
Jayawardena said the SIS had not received information on the attack through foreign intelligence received on 04 April 2019.
“The SIS only received reports on Zahran’s capability of conducting an attack and not on his preparedness to go through with the attack. The Indian High Commission was mentioned as a primary target while the churches were mentioned as soft targets”, he said.
The former SIS Director said as the intelligence report did not specify any churches the SIS decided to develop the particular intelligence report without sending it directly to other relevant authorities.
The SIS was only aware of a group being provided weapons training by Zahran in Nuwara-Eliya on 05 August 2018, while it had not received any prior information on the collection of weapons by Zahran’s team, he further said.
SDIG Nilantha Jayawardena said that the SIS was made aware of Zahran having conducted a dry bomb test on 17 April 2019 following the foreign intelligence report, adding that the report was not disregarded in any manner. (Newswire)