The police have arrested an associate of Zahran Hashim, who led the National Thowheed Jamaath, which carried out the Easter Sunday carnage, for having promoted extremism among students and young school leavers in the run-up to 2019 Easter Sunday carnage.

DIG (Legal) Ajith Rohana said, yesterday, the police had recently apprehended the 38-year-old resident of Iqbal Road, Muttur in the wake information the suspect had addressed those who sat the GCE O/L and A/L examinations in the Muttur area.

DIG Rohana said that the Muttur man had acted on the instructions of Zahran, who was one of the Easter Sunday bombers. The top police officer said that the suspect had been detained under Detention Order issued in terms of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) pending further investigations.

According to DIG Rohana of those over 700 persons taken into custody since the 2019 Easter attacks; some have been remanded and others are being held under PTA, pending investigations. The Terrorist Investigations Division (TID) and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) are continuing probes into the incidents. DIG Rohana said that in addition to the Easter Sunday attacks, the police probe covered incidents in the run-up to April 21m 2019 carnage and developments thereafter.

Meanwhile, two persons held at the Polonnaruwa and Kegalle remand prisons have been handed over to the TID following directives issued by the Magistrate courts of Polonnaruwa and Kegalle, respectively. DIG Rohana said that the residents of Kattankudy and Gampola had been involved with Zahran Hashim and may have had close contacts with others involved in the conspiracy. (SF)