Sri Lanka PM Ranil Wickremesinghe says prior intelligence inputs were given by India, but there was a lapse 

Ranil Wickremesingheaption

New Delhi: Three days after the deadliest terrorist attack in Sri Lanka that killed more than 300 people and injured over 500, Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe claimed that intelligence inputs about the attack were shared by India but there was a lapse in how Lankan government handled it.

In an exclusive interview with NDTV in Colombo, on Tuesday, he said, “India gave us the intelligence but there has been a lapse on how we acted on that... intelligence was not conveyed down the line.” He also added that Sri Lankan investigators were in touch with several countries, including China and Pakistan, as they probed the strike.

According to sources, Indian intelligence officers contacted Sri Lankan counterparts two hours before the first attack to warn of a specific threat on churches. Meanwhile Sri Lankan President, Maithripala Sirisena, claimed that the information about the attack was not passed on to him by relevant officials, he said: “If they had done so, I would have taken immediate action. I have decided to take strict action against those who failed in their duty.”

On Easter Sunday a series of eight explosions had hit churches and hotels in an attack, and the terror network ISIS, on Tuesday, took the responsibility of it. However, earlier the Sri Lankan government named a local Islamist group, National Thowheeth Jama'ath, as the chief suspect.

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