Lankan court orders remains of Easter Sunday bomber be exhumed and relocated

A Sri Lankan court on Friday ordered the police to exhume and relocate the remains of an Easter Sunday suicide bomber buried in Batticaloa after protests over the initial burial site.

The court order comes after a motion filed by the chief government administrator for the eastern town of Batticaloa, nearly 318 km from Colombo.

Nearly 260 people were killed when seven suicide bombers from a local Muslim group attacked three churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, in the worst violence by the Islamic State group-linked militants in South Asia.

The police said that Mohamed Nasar Mohamed Azad's body will be exhumed on Monday and will be kept in a mortuary till the government finds an alternate place to bury it.

Azad was the suicide bomber at the Zion Churh in Batticaloa.

Local residents and relatives of those killed in the attack at the Zion Church had protested on Tuesday against the burial of the militant at the Kalliyankadu Cemetery.

The agitators had blocked the Colombo-Batticaloa highway, prompting the police to fire tear gas shells to disperse the crowd.

Sri Lankan leaders and the security establishment are under fire for not acting on near-specific intelligence on the possible attacks on churches.

Government leaders have acknowledged that some intelligence units were aware of possible attacks weeks before the bombings.

National police chief Pujith Jayasundara was suspended and former defense secretary Hemasiri Fernando had resigned after the attacks.

Both were later arrested after the presidential commission found grounds to charge them with dereliction of duties and criminal negligence. They were later released on bail.

On Friday last, Sri Lanka ended the four-month-long state of emergency imposed in the country following the bombings.