Zahran Hashim, the suspected mastermind of the Easter Sunday terrorist bombings in Sri Lanka, had blown himself at the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo on 21 April. Along with him, one of his brothers was also involved in the incident and is believed to be dead or still at large, as per the Sri Lankan investigators.
Sri Lankan military intelligence arrived at Hashim's sister Madhaniya's house and asked them to come to a hospital in Ampara and identify the bodies of 15 people, who were killed in a suicide blast at a safe house in Kalmunai a day after the blast, as per The Indian Express.
She agreed to go to the hospital with her husband but told them that she will identify them with a photo, to which the investigator replied that “if it is indeed them, this will be the last time you will get to see them. They are terrorists.”
The blast in the safe house killed Zahran's wife his two children, wife of the brother who is missing and their two children, another sister, her husband and their child, one of Zahran's children and both parents.
As per The Indian Express, 16 family members, including children, went missing three days before the attacks and Madhaniya said that she did not know what Islamic State was, which reportedly inspired his brothers to kill people.
'He Brought Catastrophe Upon Our Family’
“We (Madhaniya and Zahran) stopped talking in 2017 after he started spitting venom in his speeches. He had been a fiery orator on Islam and a crowdpuller at streetcorner meetings from his teenage days ,” she told The Indian Express.
“But I couldn’t take it any longer after he started to preach against the government, the national flag, against elections, and against other religions. He brought catastrophe upon our family.”Madhaniya, Sister of Suspected Mastermind of Sri Lankan Bombings
She told The Indian Express that there was a National Thowheed Jamath mosque, about 100 meters away from where she lived and Zahran was allegedly radicalised.
Madhaniya said he was offensive about other religion and also moderate Muslims and Sufis, calling the latter "drug addicts and smokers".
“My husband kept away from him as we felt that he was moving in a dangerous direction. The police were already monitoring him.”Madhaniya, Sister of Suspected Mastermind of Sri Lankan Bombings
Though she did not have any connections with Zahran, she used to send food to her parents. But on 18 April, the neighbours informed her that they were not home. "Their phones had been switched off. Then the blasts happened, and we learnt the role Zahran had played,” Madhaniya added.
Dropped Out of School But Retained Interest in Islamic Studies
Madhaniya said Zahran dropped out of school in class 6 but his interest in Islamic Studies never wore off. He also completed his course in Arabic to memorise the Quran and showed "unusual interest" in propagating his ideas about the religion.
“He lost God because he learnt the Hadiths from the wrong people, and he learnt to kill people instead. I should say that I am happy that he is no more.”Madhaniya, Sister of Suspected Mastermind of Sri Lankan Bombings
It was reported that Zahran made a trip to Tamil Nadu, but as per his sister's knowledge, he had only been out of Sri Lanka once at least 10 years ago when he went to Japan.
“After 2017, I doubt he went abroad because his passport and identification numbers were already with the police by then,” she said.
She said that he considered everything other than Quran a sin, and people who enjoyed other music sinners.
“He believed that his interpretation of the religion was the best, and all others were bad. His idea of Islam was not ours.”Madhaniya, Sister of Suspected Mastermind of Sri Lankan Bombings
Two years ago, he made provocative speeches against moderate Muslims and as he came under the radar, he fled.
'Victim of Wahhabi Islam'
Secretary of the Sufi Badhariya Masjid HM Ameer said Zahran was absconding since March 2017 as he was to be arrested. "He was the victim of the Wahhabi Islam that Sri Lankans who went to Gulf in the 1980s brought back with themselves. Wahhabism has killed our traditional values, and painted moderate Muslims like us as kafirs,” he added.
Ameer said that he threatened them publicly in meetings and called them "renegades". "He ridiculed traditional Islamic practices that we followed. Wahhabi Islam made him a conservative, then an extremist, and finally a terrorist," he added.
(With inputs from The Indian Express)
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