Sri Lanka court imposes overseas travel ban on former President Gotabaya over Easter bombings probe

New Delhi ( Vivek Ojha) : Sri Lanka has been monitored by several investigation agencies since 2019 due to controversial Easter day bombings. Now, A Sri Lankan court on Wednesday (June 3, 2026) banned former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from foreign travel in connection with the ongoing investigations into the Easter Sunday terror attacks of 2019.

What happened in Easter day bombings in Sri Lanka in 2019 :

The 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings were a series of coordinated, deadly suicide attacks that occurred on Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019. Nine attackers targeted three Christian churches and three luxury hotels, killing over 260 people and injuring more than 500. As many as eight blasts occurred in and around the capital Colombo, as large groups gathered at churches for Easter. Three churches, St. Anthony's Shrine, St. Sebastian's church and Zion Church and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital, Colombo, were targeted in a series of coordinated Islamic terrorist suicide bombings.

According to UNICEF, Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday bombings killed 253 people in three districts. The attack on Saint Sebastian’s Church in Negombo alone caused over 219 casualties – almost three-fourths were women and children. The Negombo District General Hospital records 110 fatalities, with most of the deaths occurring instantaneously or within minutes of the blast.

Colombo Fort Magistrate recent directives:

Further, the Colombo Fort Magistrate also barred two military personnel from travelling abroad, citing the probe. The attacks in April 2019 targeted three luxury hotels in Colombo and three churches in and around Colombo, and the eastern city of Batticaloa. It killed over 270 people, injured hundreds, and shook the tentative peace on the island a decade after its brutal civil war ended.

The travel ban on Mr. Gotabaya comes three months after Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department arrested former intelligence chief Major General Suresh Sallay. It is the first time that investigating authorities have sought to formally link the former president to the Easter bombings investigation, four years after he was dramatically ousted by a mass protest movement of citizens, sparked by a financial meltdown.