Ramesh Raju was standing with his family near the entrance to Zion church in Batticaloa on Sri Lanka’s east coast, waiting for the Easter service to start, when he spotted the man who had come to attack their community.

Wearing casual clothes, walking alone and carrying a large backpack, the man stuck out from a crowd dressed in their Sunday best for one of the holiest days of the Christian calendar, and gathered in excited groups of family and friends.

“My husband sensed something was wrong,” Raju’s wife Chrishanthini told the BBC, as she described how her husband stopped the suicide attacker from entering the church, sealing his own fate but almost certainly saving many other lives.

Challenged about why he was coming to church, the man claimed his backpack held a video camera and he had come to film worshippers. It was not a convincing explanation. “(Ramesh) informed him he’d need to get permission first,” she said. “He then forced him to leave.”

As the men argued, Chrishanthini took the couple’s two children Rukshika, 14, and Niruban, 12, into the church for the service, expecting her husband to join soon after. But moments later, a huge explosion shook the building.

Barred from entering the church, the bomber had blown himself up outside, where there were fewer people. But in saving others, Raju sacrificed his own life.

His wife found the 40-year-old dead in the same spot she had last seen him alive, she told the BBC. It was the latest in a series of tragic losses for her; both of her parents were killed during the bloody civil war and an aunt died in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

Many of those who died beside Raju were children, who were killed in disproportionate numbers in the Zion attack because they had gathered outside to enjoy a brief break between Sunday school classes and the main service.

In total, 12 of the 28 dead in Batticaloa were children, as were many of the dozens injured. They included 12-year-old Sharon Santhakumar and his 11-year-old sister Sarah, who died together, and were buried beside each other the next day, the BBC reported.

Eighth grade student V Jackson was among several casualties from one family, his father, Arasaratnam Verl, told the Times of India. “My elder sister was killed too. My two younger sisters and my brother-in-law are critical.”

One of the church’s pastors also lost a child, 14-year-old Shalom Malkiah, according to Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror. The grieving priest and father had left to hold mass at a different church when the explosion happened.

But Ganeshamoorthy Thirukumaran said he had earlier met the bomber, who introduced himself as “Umar” from a nearby town.

“I asked him who he was, and why he was standing there,” the pastor said. “I then invited him into the church, as I thought he was like the many new people who come to our church. So I didn’t have any doubts or suspicions about him.”















