'There is something big behind the Easter Attacks. We want to know what it is,"- Cardinal

COLOMBO (News 1st); The head of Sri Lanka's Catholic Church His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith had accused of the government of deceiving the people by promising justice for the victims of the Easter Sunday Attacks of 2019.

"The President before his election campaign went all over the place assuring our public that he will attend to this matter (Easter Attacks) as soon as he comes to power," said His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith.

"At a meeting held immediately after his victory with the Bishops Conference and with me, he assured and promised us that he will carry on with the decisions of the commission (Presidential Commission of Inquiry) and he will implement all the decisions of the commission," he added, noting that later the President said if he implemented certain decisions of the report, he would become unpopular.

"Two days after the report was handed over, he called me and said that there are some provisions of the report that if implemented, he will become unpopular," he said referring to a telephone conversation with the President.

His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith alleged that after the copies of the report were given to the President, he appointed government ministers to pick and chose the decisions of the PCoI that would be of interest to him.

This report has been a waste of time and a waste of hope for all of us, He said.

The report recommends that the Attorney General should ask the intelligence services to inquire into a whole series of suspicious gray areas, but nothing has been done, he said alleging that most of these are limited to mere words.

He said the attacks were not just carried out by a group of extremists, but there is something big behind the attacks.

"We want the international community to help us in this struggle to find out what really happened on that Easter Sunday. Who really did it? Who made use of these characters, in order to achieve political gains," he said.