Zahran Hashim (died 21 April 2019) was a Sri Lankan extremist imam who led National Thowheeth Jama'ath and masterminded and took part in the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings.
Biography[]
Zahran Hashim was an extremist Muslim cleric who was known for his fiery Islamist rhetoric on social media (including the pro-ISIS "al-Ghuraba Media" Facebook account) and for being a prolific lecturer for National Thowheeth Jama'ath. In 2019, he planned an attack on the Indian embassy in Colombo, but the attack never came to fruition. Instead, in the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings, over 350 people were killed in a series of suicide bombings at three churches and three five-star hotels across Sri Lanka. Hashim was one of the suicide bombers, bombing the Protestant Zion Church in Batticaloa. It was not until 25 April that police believed that he was a bomber and was not on the run.