The four Sri Lankan IS suspects who were arrested at the Ahmedabad Airport in India have been recommended to be rehabilitated Dr. Punsara Amarasinghe, Senior Lecturer on International Law at Sir John Kotalawala Defense University said.
Taking part in a conversation with Hiru TV Dr Punsara further said that the presidential commission appointed to investigate the Easter Sunday attacks made this recommendation but it has not been done so far.
According to the senior lecturer, the investigation commission led by Justice Janak De Sila also found that there were over 400 youths who had been radicalized and should be subjected to a proper rehabilitation process.
Dr. Punsara Amarasinghe stated that the recommendations given based on the information identified by the commission were not properly implemented in the country.
“A special presidential commission of inquiry appointed to investigate the Easter Sunday attacks recommended that several organizations that influence Islamic extremism be banned. In addition to these organizations, it was also recommended to ban Madrassas because they were mentioned in the textbooks of Islamic schools as promoting extremism. But by 2023, due to activities including the influence of non-governmental organizations, that step was reversed.
Dr Amarasinghe also said that the program to rehabilitate radicalized youth shows the importance of this incident.
He also explained the situation related to the Indian activities of the IS network.
“India is taking special interest in the activities of IS terrorist organizations. Its intelligence agencies get this information in a very organized manner. In the year 2016, after it was revealed that a young man from Galewala in Sri Lanka and his family went to Syria and joined the IS organization, they are paying wide attention to this matter and building an intelligence network. According to this, in 2018, Indian intelligence agencies provided information that an IT engineer named Aadil X is actively engaged in the process of radicalizing the youth of Sri Lanka using the Internet. But this person was arrested in 2019. It shows how it works in this regard in our country.
India has launched its intelligence network at the state level and has strengthened its network extensively. They acted very correctly last week as well. This is why ISIS could not launch a large-scale extremist attack in their country recently. The IS network in Sri Lanka has a strong network with Wahhabist organizations in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. This is why the information provided by the Indian intelligence agencies is very important,” he said.
However, Dr. Amarasinghe further emphasized that now Sri Lanka should take the necessary steps to bring these suspects to Sri Lanka and carry out the relevant legal proceedings.
