The Sri Lankan Army Chief, Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake has said that, the suicide bombers responsible for Easter Sunday bombing visited Kerala and Kashmir to ‘’training’ and ‘establish more links’ with foreign terror outfits, reports The Press Trust of India.
Lt. Gen Mahesh Senanayake confirmed the militants’ visit to India, which had shared intelligence inputs with Sri Lanka ahead of attacks.
In an interview to the BBC, Senanayake said, “They have gone to India, they’ve gone to Kashmir, Bangalore. They visited Kerala state. Those are the information available with us. These visits are definitely for some sorts of training or to make some more links towards the other organisations outside the country”.
Over Sri Lanka’s failure to intercept the attack, Senanayake said that everybody who is responsible for intelligence-gathering and the national security is to be blamed, including the political hierarchy.
“Too much of freedom, too much of peace for the last 10 years. People forget what happened for 30 years. People are enjoying peace and they neglected security”, said the top officer in a reference to the civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Targeting three churches and three luxury hotels, a series of blasts were carried out by nine suicide bombers, including a woman, that killed 253 people and injuring over 500.