About 300 people were killed and more than 500 people were injured in Sri Lanka during this year’s Easter Sunday that saw suicide bombers strike three high-end hotels popular with foreign tourists, and three churches, unleashing terror in Colombo and beyond.
Two additional blasts were triggered as security forces carried out raids searching for suspects.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but police arrested 24 people on Monday.

The Sri Lankan government believes a local Islamist extremist group called the National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ) was behind the deadly suicide bomb attacks. The government was investigating whether the group had "international support".

Sril Lanka, battered for years by ethnic conflicts, was on the path of resurrection in various fields including tourism sector. But the issue of communal hatred and divisions in society due to cultural narrow-mindedness was not to end with the mere suppression of the LTTE.

Even when the LTTE had the upper hand in Srilanka, the majority community called Sinhala took a hate-ridden stand against the Muslim groups. This fuming resentment lured them towards terrorism. This was even reported by Sri Lankan newspapers.
Massive religious conversions carried out by Christian community, establishment of Pentecostal mission and churches by Seventh Day Adventist Christian groups also irked the Muslim community.
The Sri Lankan Guardian in its editorial also pointed out this as one of the reasons for the recent attack in its editorial.
Another important factor is the instability in the governance. Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wikrama Singe are in two opposite poles.
The government also failed to take precautions despite receiving secret Intelligence warning about possible suicide bomb attacks on Sri Lankan churches and Indian High Commissioner’s office in Colombo.

Sri Lanka’s political leaders who indulge in blame game, religious groups that harbour hatred against one another and international terror groups that lie in ambush to take advantage of the situation have together made the life of Sri Lankan miserable.

It is unfortunate to see Sri Lanka, the land that showed the path of non-violence …the land where Sree Budha’s messages are popular and the land where Buddhists are a majority, being pushed again into the path of violence.