Zaharan Hashim, a radical Muslim preacher accused of masterminding the Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, never hid his hatred.
He railed against a local performance in which Muslim girls dared to dance. When a Muslim politician held a 50th birthday party, he raged about how Western infidel traditions were poisoning his hometown, Kattankudy.
There were, Mr. Zaharan said in one of his online sermons, three types of people: Muslims, those who had reached an accord with Muslims, and “people who need to be killed.”
Idolaters, he added, “need to be slaughtered wherever you see them.”
Mr. Zaharan has been described by Sri Lankan officials as having founded an obscure group with inchoate aims: a defacement of a Buddha statue, a diatribe against Sufi mystics.
A radical preacher accused of masterminding the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka never hid his hatred. “We all underestimated him. We never thought he would do what he said.” https://t.co/kylj6Gk25C
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 26, 2019