The gazette notice banning the controversial National Thowheed Jama'at (NTJ) and Jamathei Millathu Ibraheem (JMI) that were to be banned following a statement issued by President Maithripala Sirisena on April 27 has not yet been issued.
On April 27, the President’s Media Unit issued a press statement claiming that steps are being taken to ban the NTJ and JMI under the Emergency Regulations No. 01 of 2019. However, the relevant gazette notification has not been issued even by this morning.
Secretary to the President Udaya Seneviratne has told the media that the Government would issue the gazette notification, today (6).
He has said the Secretariat was waiting for approval in writing from the newly-appointed Defence Secretary, Shantha Kottegoda, in order to issue the gazette.
The decision to issue the gazette today was taken at the National Security Council (NSC) meeting held on Friday (3) night, Seneviratne has said.
Military Spokesman Brigadier Sumith Atapattu has said that President Sirisena had already signed the relevant documents and handed them over to the Presidential Secretariat, but the process was on hold as the Intelligence Services wanted to ban a few other organizations together with the initially mentioned ones.
However, sources say that even though there were several requests made by the intelligence units in the country requesting to ban a few other organizations, the heads of all government law enforcement authorities had agreed to gazette the NTJ and JMI as an initial step and later add other organizations.
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