SRI Lanka’s Police Chief on Friday became the latest senior official to quit over failures to prevent the Easter massacre, as President Maithripala Sirisena said the top leader of the Islamist extremist group blamed for the deadly attacks died in the blast at the Shangri-La hotel.

 

Sirisena, who is also the Defence Minister, said Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara resigned over failures which led to the worst terror attack in the country’s history.

 

“The IGP has resigned. He has sent his resignation to the acting Defence Secretary. I’ll nominate a new IGP soon,” the president said. His resignation came a day after the country’s defence secretary Hemasiri Fernando resigned on Thursday.

 

President Sirisena had asked both Fernando and Jayasundara to quit after their failure to prevent the blasts despite having prior intelligence. Top officials have acknowledged that Sri Lanka received Intelligence about possible terror strikes ahead of the attacks, but both Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said that they did not receive the information. Nine suicide bombers carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels on the Easter Sunday. The Islamic State group has claimed the attacks, but the government has blamed local Islamist extremist group National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ) for the attacks. The president also appealed to the island nation not to view its minority Muslim community as terrorists in the wake of the attacks. Sirisena said despite the attacks, the island’s nine per cent Muslim minority must not be regarded terrorists.

 

“We looked into banning the NTJ but we do not have laws to do that right now. We have to draft new laws. We will get this done soon,” he said. “Information is that around 130-140 IS suspects are in the country. Around 70 are arrested, we will arrest them all very soon ending this (terror),” Sirisena said. Police said that over 70 suspects, including five women, have been arrested as the Lankan authorities have intensified their search operations with the help of the Army. The Health Ministry on Thursday night sharply revised the death toll downward to 253, saying the previous figure of 359 was due to a “calculation error”. Sirisena said the Intelligence supplied by a friendly nation was not shared with him by officials. “All they have done was to exchange letters among themselves,” he said.