(): In the early hours of Tuesday, a huge contingent of the police special force and army personnel cordoned off a1.5sqkm area of Kattankudy on Sri Lanka’s eastern coast. The cordon cut off the area with Muslim residents, including radical leader Zahran Hashim’s sister Mathaniya and brother-in-law Niyaz Sharif. Police picked up Niyaz for questioning and Mathaniya left for her mother-in-law’s place. There was talk that Niyaz too was getting carried away by Islamic State’s radical propaganda, but friends weaned him away, say locals.
Two days ago, police special task force and army personnel had quietly swept into two houses tucked away in Anwar Palli area where Zahran’s parents and another sister, Jazeera, with child, husband Nishad and small daughter Ubeida lived until they left hurriedly, three days before the deadly Easter Sunday bombings on April 21.
While their own house in Kudakaran Lane in their native Kattankudy town remains locked, they had opted to stay in the rented accommodation from February 2017.
“On April 18, they left in a hurry, saying they will return two days later for their belongings,” said landlady Md Ibrahi Rafana. Among articles they left behind were religious books, including Islamic literature, a , the and the Sree Kanda Puranam ( religious text), besides furniture and clothes.
Rafana’s husband Saleem did not find anything unusual about their tenants until the serial blasts tore through Sri Lanka killing more than 250 people and injuring 500 others. Several of Zahran’s family members, including his parents, two brothers, pregnant sister Jazeera and her family were killed in one of the blasts.
Rafana said police arrived on Sunday, a day after the April 26 raid on a safe house in Sahindamarudu.
Police searched the house for clues, sifting through bags of clothes, books, vessels and bottles. The search team left behind the religious literature, taking nothing with them, said Rafana. She said her tenants had been prompt in paying the monthly rental — Rs 4,000 for one house and Rs 4,500 for the other. “Zehran helped organise his sister’s wedding,” said Rafana.
Abdul Wahab was the terror leader’s father, Md Hashim’s neighbour for two decades. “The house has remained locked for over a year now,” he said. In 2016, Zahran left after he got into trouble with police over charges of inciting racism. “I last saw Zahran in 2016,” said Wahab. “His father was soft-spoken, who led a simple life, selling small masala packets to shops,” said Wahab. But a video tape had surfaced, Wahab said, purportedly of Zehran’s father and brothers, recorded in the Sahindamarudu safe house, where they warn of more blasts and heap abuse on the Sri Lankan government.
Elsewhere in Kattankudy, the troops combed the area, meticulously searching every house, big and small. “They arrived at 4am. They gave us this chit to certify that our home has been searched and was ‘clean’,” said school principal Rafeeka Bheevi, a slip of paper signed by local police, clutched in her hand.
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