The Criminal Investigation Department has told court that the 2022 DNA test which formally identified Pulastini, also known as Sarah Jasmine, as among the dead at Sainthamaruthu is “suspicious” — reopening a seven-year question about whether the wife of an Easter Sunday suicide bomber is in fact alive.
Sarah Jasmine was the wife of Mohamed Hasthun, the bomber who detonated explosives at St. Sebastian’s Church in Katuwapitiya on April 21, 2019. Investigators have described her as a crucial witness with knowledge of the wider plot.
Five days after the bombings, on April 26, 2019, security forces raided the Sainthamaruthu house of attack ringleader Zahran Hashim. Zahran’s brother Mohamed Rilwan detonated explosives during the raid. Seventeen people, including women and children, were reported killed.
Two rounds of DNA testing initially failed to confirm Sarah’s death. After exhumations on April 27, 2022, the Government Analyst’s Department reported a 99.9999 percent probability match between bone fragments at the scene and DNA from Sarah’s mother. In March 2023, the CID formally stated she had died there.
That conclusion is now disputed. Following the reopening of the Easter investigation in 2025 under the new government, the CID has told court the 2022 DNA test was suspicious.
A Senior Inspector from the Special Task Force testified that after the explosions and shootings, the Sainthamaruthu area fell completely silent — and that the sound of a motorcycle being started and driven away was clearly audible. A second senior police officer corroborated the motorcycle account. Investigators had earlier received information that Zahran’s family arrived at the house in a van and on two motorcycles, but only one motorcycle was found at the scene afterwards.
The then-Chief Inspector of the Badulla Scene of Crime Officers Unit testified that the explosion inside the Sainthamaruthu house was not powerful enough to completely vaporise Sarah Jasmine’s body.
A Special Branch intelligence officer told court Sarah travelled after the blast to Kalmunai, visited a relative in Vellaveli, and later moved by sea from Mankadu to Mannar. The same officer said a man named Joshua, who maintained a close relationship with Sarah, attempted to call her after the explosion; her phone initially appeared disconnected, but she later returned the call from her own number.
The disclosures were reported to court as part of the ongoing CID Easter investigation, which has produced a string of new evidence threads in recent weeks including witness intimidation incidents and the arrest of former SIS chief Suresh Salley under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
