Lanka Easter attack leader Zahran Hashim died in hotel bombing: President Sirisena
Colombo: Sri Lankan extremist Zahran Hashim, said to be the top leader of an IS linked local militant group that carried out the Easter Sunday bombings, died in the blast at the Shangri-La hotel, President Maithripala Sirisena said Friday.
Hashim, the head of extremist group National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ), led the attack on the hotel and was accompanied by a second bomber identified as Ilham Ahmed Ibrahim. Hashim was killed during the bombings, the president told reporters here.
The president said the information came from military intelligence and was based in part on CCTV footage recovered from the scene.Hashim appeared in a video released by the Islamic State group after they claimed the bombings, but his whereabouts after the blasts were not immediately clear.
In the video, the round-faced radical cleric was seen dressed in a black tunic headscarf and posing with a rifle.Hashim was believed to be 40 years old and a loner. He hailed from the east coast region of Batticaloa. He was a college drop-out and hailed from an average Muslim middle-class family.
India's National Investigation Agency during its probe into an ISIS-inspired module planning to kill prominent leaders in south India had stumbled upon videos of Hashim, which was indicative of a terror attack on the Indian High Commission in Colombo.The videos showed Hashim asking youths from Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala to establish an Islamic rule in the region.
After further investigation which included cyber trailing of some of the accounts associated with the ISIS, India's central security agencies had shared an input with their Lankan counterparts about the churches being the likely target of the ISIS module.
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Shashi Tharoor calls for regulation and taxation instead of banning online gaming
New Delhi(PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday criticised the government’s move to ban online money gaming, warning that such a step would only push the industry underground and strengthen criminal networks.
He also said he had not studied the three Constitution amendment bills seeking to provide a framework for the removal of prime ministers, Union ministers, chief ministers and state ministers detained on serious criminal charges in any detail.
“On the face of it, it is difficult to say it has any problem, but obviously if anyone does something wrong they should not be a minister anyway. I don’t know if there is any other motive,” he remarked.
Discussing the bill seeking to prohibit and regulate online gaming introduced in the Lok Sabha, he said, "I had written a very long article on the argument that by banning online gaming we are simply driving it underground, whereas it could be a useful source of revenue for the government if we legalise it, regulate it and tax it."
He added that many countries have studied the issue in detail and concluded that regulation and taxation can generate funds for social causes, while bans merely enrich “criminal mafias”.
In a post on X, Tharoor recalled that he had “gone on record in 2018 urging the government to legalise, regulate and tax online gaming, rather than drive it underground by banning it, which will merely enhance the profits of the mafia”.
“It’s a pity that the government seems to have derived no lessons from the experience of other countries that have considered this issue,” he wrote.
He added that the bill should at least have been referred to a parliamentary committee “to consider all the pros and cons before rushing it into law”.
The proposed bill prohibits online money gaming and its advertisements, prescribing imprisonment or fines, or both, for violators. It differentiates such games from eSports and online social games, while calling for their promotion.
1/2 I went on record in 2018 urging the government to legalise, regulate and tax online gaming, rather than drive it underground by banning it, which will merely enhance the profits of the mafia. https://t.co/KYi2aTxDQQ
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 20, 2025
