Suspended police head blames President Sirisena for failing to prevent Lanka attack
Colombo: Sri Lanka's suspended police chief has accused President Maithripala Sirisena of failing to prevent the Easter bombings that killed over 250 people as he filed a petition in the Supreme Court against his "unfair dismissal" over the catastrophic intelligence failure.
Inspector-General Pujith Jayasundara was sent on compulsory leave by Sirisena for his alleged inaction on the intelligence shared by India, which warned of an impending attack by Islamic militants, and thereby, failing to prevent the serial blasts on April 21.
In the petition submitted to the court last week, Jayasundara revealed serious lack of communication between intelligence agencies and security arms of the government, all which fall under Sirisena, and claimed he was sidelined and excluded from attending National Security Council meetings since a political rift between the president and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe emerged in October last year.
In October 2018, Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The police was under the control of Wickremesinghe.
In the 20-page complaint, the former police chief said Sirisena had asked Nilantha Jayawardena, the head of the State Intelligence Service (SIS) -- country's premier spy agency, to report directly to the president on matters of national security.
Jayasundara claimed despite having intelligence inputs from India about an impending attack, the SIS chief did not take the warning seriously and take any action on it.
On April 9, Jayasundara said he received a letter from Sisira Mendis, the chief of national intelligence, giving information on the planned attack. He also received a phone call from the Secretary to the then Defence Minister Hemasiri Fernando on the impending attacks. Fernando was also sacked by Sirisena for his alleged failure to prevent the attacks.
The former Inspector-General claimed despite the SIS not sharing security warning information with the police department, he alerted Jayawardena about the impending threat but the SIS head did not ask him to take any action.
More than 250 people were killed in eight coordinated suicide bomb attacks carried out by local Jihadi group National Thowheed Jammath (NTJ) linked to the ISIS on April 21.
Two days after the attacks, Jayasundara said, Sirisena asked him to take the responsibility for the failure to prevent the bombings and step down in exchange for a diplomatic posting.
However, he refused to do so following which Sirisena sacked him "illegally".
Earlier on Thursday, Sirisena said he was not privy to an intelligence warning on the Easter suicide bombings, contradicting the national intelligence chief Mendis' testimony before a parliamentary probe panel.
During a visit to New Delhi last week to attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony, Sirisena said a clear report about a possible terror attack was sent by Indian intelligence agencies to their Sri Lankan counterparts 17 days prior to the April 21 bombings but he was not informed about it.
"Had I known about a possible attack, I would have taken necessary steps to prevent it," Sirisena said.
Sirisena said he left for a foreign trip on April 16 and till then he was not informed about the Indian intelligence report, though there had been exchanges on the issue between the defence secretary and the then inspector general of police.
"Had I known it, I would not have left the country," he had said.
A parliamentary select committee was appointed to probe the events leading to the April 21 attacks and any lapses by those responsible following reports that India had alerted the Sri Lankan defence establishment on the impending attacks.
Testifying before the committee on Wednesday, Mendis said that at an intelligence coordination meeting on April 9 discussed the information received on the impending attacks, however, it "was never a main point for discussion".
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Election Commission behaving like 'biased umpire': Derek O'Brien
New Delhi (PTI): A day after the Trinamool Congress wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner demanding that the number of voters in the first two phases be made public, TMC leader Derek O'Brien on Tuesday questioned the neutrality of the poll panel.
"Does EC now stand for 'extremely compromised! In cricket, there are three kinds of umpires- an umpire, a neutral umpire and a biased umpire. By the actions of EC, more and more people are being convinced that EC fits into the third category," O'Brien, Trinamool Congress' Leader in Rajya Sabha, stated in an X post.
The Trinamool Congress had on Monday urged Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar to "urgently furnish" the constituency-wise voter turnout in absolute numbers for the first two phases of Lok Sabha polls and also sought an explanation over the "delay" in releasing the figures.
Facing flak from the opposition parties over the issue, the Election Commission had on Monday said that "booth-wise data of actual number of votes polled is available with the candidates, which is a statutory requirement". It had also announced a new feature to its mobile application to show aggregated phase-wise turnout for the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.
"Commission has added a new feature in Voter Turnout App to show aggregated phase-wise turnout also in addition to State/PC /AC wise figures. This is for better facilitation of media and other stakeholders who may need this customised information," it said.
In its letter addressed to the CEC on Monday, the Trinamool Congress said the poll panel released the voter turnout percentage for the first two phases "belatedly" on April 30, but the report had no information about the total figure of eligible electors and the number of actual votes cast.
They demanded that the EC publish the total number of registered electors in each seat, the total number of voters physically turned up as per the 'Register for Voters', and the number of voters as per the EVM, for all constituencies which had gone to polls in phases one and two.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge also wrote to the leaders of various parties of the INDIA opposition bloc on Tuesday over the alleged discrepancies in the voting data released by the EC. In his letter, Kharge urged the INDIA bloc leaders to "collectively, unitedly and unequivocally" raise their voice on the issue. Sources in the Trinamool Congress said they welcomed the letter.
The EC officially shared the turnout figure for the first two phases of Lok Sabha polls on April 30. According to EC figures, a voter turnout of 66.14 per cent was recorded in phase one and 66.71 per cent in phase two of the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. The opposition parties are also demanding that the absolute number of voters be made public.
Voting is being held in 93 constituencies spread over 11 states and Union territories on Tuesday in the third phase of the parliamentary polls.
