LEN - www.lankaenews.com | Why Is the CID Still Delaying Action Against Deshabandu Tennakoon and Lalith Pathinayake Over Easter Sunday Security Lapses..? Seven years on, two culprits remain untouched..! What is the reason?

Why Is the CID Still Delaying Action Against Deshabandu Tennakoon and Lalith Pathinayake Over Easter Sunday Security Lapses..? Seven years on, two culprits remain untouched..! What is the reason?

-By Ruwan Weerakoon

(Lanka-e-News -11.Aug.2026, 3.45 PM) Seven years after the Easter Sunday massacre, the men whose failures a presidential commission says helped clear the path for the bombers still walk free of so much as a disciplinary charge. The Criminal Investigation Department has had the findings in hand, the recommendations spelled out, and — three separate times now — a direct instruction from the Attorney General's Department to act. It has done none of it.

The Presidential Commission of Inquiry, headed by Supreme Court Justice Janak De Silva, did not find that former IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon and Senior DIG Lalith Pathinayake plotted the attacks. What it found was arguably just as damning: that both men, holding two of the most sensitive commands in the Colombo security apparatus on the eve of April 21, 2019, sat on actionable intelligence that could have stopped it.

A Warning That Went Unheeded

The commission's account of Tennakoon's conduct, as then-DIG North Colombo, describes a chain of command that simply stopped working. Senior DIG Nandana Munasinghe had briefed the division in detail and issued explicit orders — body searches, vehicle checks, parking restrictions, plainclothes officers stationed at churches. None of it reached the ground. Tennakoon allegedly never passed the orders down to his Senior Superintendents of Police. Investigators say the security directives sat, untouched, in his desk file.

Then came the day itself. As police forces nationwide were placed on high alert, Tennakoon's official phone was switched off. He was reportedly on holiday with his family at a resort on Sri Lanka's east coast — off the grid, by his own department's account, at the precise hour his division needed him reachable. For a commanding officer to go dark during a live national security crisis is, investigators have suggested, close to unprecedented.

The cost of that silence was paid at St. Sebastian's Church in Katuwapitiya and St. Anthony's Shrine in Kochchikade, both left without the protection the orders had called for.

Pathinayake, as then-DIG Colombo, is accused of a narrower but no less consequential failure. He received specific, actionable warnings in the hours before the attacks — including on the night of April 20 — and, the commission found, did nothing with them. No additional personnel were assigned. No perimeter security went up at St. Anthony's Shrine in Kotahena.

The Officer Who Did What the Orders Said

What makes the Tennakoon and Pathinayake findings harder to explain away is that another officer, given the same warning, acted on it. DIG Wasantha Wickramasinghe, then commanding Colombo South, implemented Munasinghe's security plan as written — deploying personnel, running targeted searches across his jurisdiction, including Dehiwala. The threats in his sector were contained. It is the clearest evidence the commission has that the casualties elsewhere were not inevitable — they were preventable, and someone nearby proved it in real time.

What the Commission Recommended? Officer-Finding-Recommendation

Deshabandu Tennakoon Failure to act on intelligence, enforce security protocols, or mobilize personnel Formal disciplinary action and a prosecutorial investigation for criminal negligence

Lalith Pathinayake Failure to execute preventive measures despite specific prior warning Disciplinary inquiry through the National Police Commission and a criminal investigation

Five Years of Cover..

The reasons the file never moved are, according to sources inside the system, mostly political. Across the presidencies of Maithripala Sirisena, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and Ranil Wickremesinghe, both officers retained significant backing at the top. Senior police sources say successive IGPs came under heavy pressure not to open disciplinary proceedings — leaving police leadership, in effect, powerless to act against its own.

It was not for lack of instruction. Sources within the Attorney General's Department say formal directives ordering investigations into both men were sent to the CID twice during earlier administrations. Both times, the file went nowhere. CID sources point to former CID DIG Prasad Ranasinghe, described as close to both Tennakoon and Pathinayake, as having played a role in stalling the investigations during his time overseeing them.

A Third Directive, and Still No Answer

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's administration took office promising a re-investigation of the Easter Sunday attacks free of executive interference. In line with that promise, the Attorney General's Department has now issued its instruction to the CID for a third time.

Retired senior investigators say there is little mystery left in what needs to happen next. Take statements from Munasinghe and Wickramasinghe. Take statements from the SSPs, ASPs, and OICs who served under Tennakoon and Pathinayake at the time. If those officers confirm — as sources suggest they will — that the mandatory security orders never reached them, the CID already has what it needs to make an arrest for criminal negligence.

Lanka e News put formal written questions to Senior DIG Asanga Karavita and to the current Inspector General of Police, asking for an update on the case. Neither has responded.

Five years on, Tennakoon and Pathinayake have faced no administrative sanction and no criminal charge. Persistent rumors within police circles point to continued financial backing and political protection shielding both men. If the interference genuinely ended with this administration, the question answers itself: what, exactly, is the CID still waiting for?