A senior Sri Lankan Muslim leader shot down the government’s claim that the Easter Sunday massacre may have been an act of retaliation for last month’s deadly attack at two New Zealand mosques, according to a new report.

Hilmy Ahamed, vice president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, told CNN that there was no way the bombings in Sri Lanka could have been planned in the short time period between the two attacks.

Plans for the slaughter were likely brewing for much longer, with foreign influence, he told the outlet.

“It is nonsense to link [the attacks] to New Zealand,” Ahamed said.

“The New Zealand attack opened the eyes of the world to the crisis the Muslims are facing,” he added, calling it something of a “blessing” for shedding a light on worldwide Islamophobia.

Ahamed also praised New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for her response to the March 15 attack in which a white supremacist allegedly gunned down 50 worshipers at a pair of mosques.

“We sent letters to the Nobel Prize committee to award the peace prize to the New Zealand prime minister,” he told CNN. “She definitely deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Sunday’s slaughter in Sri Lanka claimed 359 lives at three churches and four hotels.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the carnage, and Sri Lankan authorities have also blamed two domestic Islamist groups with suspected ties to the terrorist group.