Colombo, Apr 22 (PTI) Sri Lankan police on Tuesday said that a four-member committee has been appointed to study and investigate the presidential commission report of 2021 on the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks.

It is to be headed by a senior deputy inspector general along with the heads of police’s terrorism and criminal investigation top brass.

Police spokesperson Superintendent Buddika Manatunga said four sub-committees have also been appointed. “New investigations will be based on the new evidence carried in the commission report,” he said.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Sunday said he had referred the report to the police’s CID for further action.

This was ahead of the anticipated address yesterday marking the sixth anniversary of the attack – meant to disclose the mastermind of the attacks carried out by a local jihadi group with links to ISIS.

However, Dissanayake did not make the statement as expected by the Catholic church.

“We did not receive a satisfactory outcome despite the statement to disclose the mastermind,” Rev Jude Krishantha, the media spokesman for the church, said.

However, the church has confidence in the ongoing fresh investigations launched by the current National People’s Power (NPP) government, he added.

Dissanayake, backing the church’s position that all investigations on the attacks since 2019 had been cover ups to meet political needs than proper investigations, said the government was determined to deliver justice to the 270 people killed and over 500 people who were injured.

The opposition charged that the pledge by Dissanayake was a mere political ploy targeting the May 6 local council elections.

On Monday, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the head of the local Catholic church, pressed for the dismantling of what he called a “deep state” within Sri Lanka, which he alleged was responsible for preventing a credible investigation into the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks.

Nine suicide bombers belonging to the local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ), linked to ISIS, carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and as many luxury hotels on April 21, 2019, killing 258 people, including 11 Indians. PTI CORR GSP GSP