The head of Sri Lanka's Catholic church, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, has said that the 2019 Easter attacks were carried out by a group who used the attacks to strengthen their political power, Newswire reported.

He expressed these views at a ceremony which took place at the General Cemetery in Borella on Sunday to bless a memorial for the victims of the Easter attacks which claimed over 250 lives.

“Our brethren were attacked not by religious extremism, but by a group that exploited it to use the attackers as pawns in order to strengthen their political power, ” the cardinal went on to say.

Nine suicide bombers, allegedly belonging to local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ), carried out coordinated blasts that tore through three churches and as many luxury hotels in Sri Lanka on the Easter Sunday in 2019

(SAM)