KATTANKUDY, Sri Lanka (Dispatches) -- Sri Lankan authorities have arrested a Saudi-educated scholar for what they claim are links with Zahran Hashim, the suspected ringleader of the Easter Sunday bombings, throwing a spotlight on the rising influence of Salafi-Wahhabi teachings on the island.
Mohamed Aliyar, 60, is the founder of the so-called Centre for Islamic Guidance, which boasts a religious school and a library in Zahran’s hometown of Kattankudy on Sri Lanka’s eastern shores.
"Information has been revealed that the suspect arrested had a close relationship with ... Zahran and had been operating financial transactions,” said a police statement late on Friday.
The statement said Aliyar was "involved” with training in the southern town of Hambantota for the group of suicide bombers who attacked hotels and churches on Easter, killing over 250 people.
The government says Zahran, a radical Tamil-speaking preacher, was a leader of the group.
Two Muslim community sources in Kattankudy told Reuters his hardline views were partly shaped by ultra-conservative Salafi-Wahhabi texts that he picked up at the center’s library around 2-3 years ago.  
"I used to always run into him at the center, reading Saudi journals and literature,” said one of the sources.
During that time, Zahran started criticizing the practice of asking God for help, for instance, arguing that such pleas were an affront to pure Islam.
"That kind of teaching was not in Sri Lanka in 2016, unless you read it in Salafi literature,” the source added, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions in Kattankudy.
Salafism that is closely linked to Wahhabism has often been criticized as the ideology of radical groups and Takfiri terrorists worldwide.
Wahhabism has its roots in Saudi Arabia and is backed by its rulers.
Aliyar founded the center in 1990, a year after he graduated from the Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, in what one resident said marked a key moment in the spread of Salafi doctrine in Kattankudy. The center was partly funded by Saudi and Kuwaiti donors, according to a plaque outside.
Three members of the center’s board told Reuters that Zahran was a troublemaker and that they had warned authorities about his extremist views.
Funding for the center came from local donations, student fees, and private donors who were classmates of Aliyar’s in Riyadh, the center’s sources said.