CCTV Footage of Sri Lanka Blast: Suspected Suicide Bomber seen entering St Sebastian’s Church in Negombo on Easter Sunday

Colombo: Following the devastating serial blasts in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, new footage has been surfacing in the media which reveals that one of the suspected suicide bombers was entering St Sebastian’s church in Negombo.

As per the 26-second CCTV video, a man was seen carrying a backpack appearing to pat a little girl even as he talks to a man accompanying the girl and then steps away.

As the man and little girl walk away, the suspected suicide bomber - a bearded young person wearing a pair of dark coloured trousers and a tee-shirt and slippers and carrying a heavy-looking backpack - walks across the cobblestoned yard outside the church.

The frame changes to inside the church, which is fully packed with people sitting on almost every pew and praying. In the background, the man can be seen moving across the first and second doors which are open and finally entering the church through the third door.

The video stops just as the man enters the church premises.

It is to be noted that the subsequent explosion that followed was the deadliest witnessed in Sri Lanka in recent years. Such was the intensity of the blast that it killed more than 50 people inside the church complex.

Though the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, the Sri Lankan government believes that the attack was carried out by the Islamist National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ), of which the two brothers were key members.