Sri Lankan Government The National Security Minister denied that his forces had killed Bastian. The spokesperson was quoted as saying On January 9, the government owned Daily News reported that, according to the Minister of National Security
Lalith Athulathmudali, Bastian's body had not been found and arms and ammunition were found in the church, which the government alleged was used as a terrorist base. The minister was quoted as saying that the police had spied on Bastian getting into a boat and going across to
India. Later in a report to the
United Nations, the Sri Lankan government claimed that the body of Bastian was found but the state was not involved in his murder.
Catholic Church In a statement, reported in the Sun on January 8, Marcus Fernando, then Bishop of Chillaw and the president of the
Catholic Bishops' Conference of Sri Lanka, said that reports reaching the Catholic Bishops' Conference indicated that the shooting was an unprovoked
Sri Lankan Army attack on the church and the incumbent. On January 8, Thomas Savundranayagam, the then Bishop of Mannar, in a statement to the strongly protested the insinuation by the government that arms were found in the church and he also accused the military of complicity in the murder of Father Mary Bastian. He was quoted as saying
Amnesty International Amnesty International, the
London human rights watchdog, in its report stated, {{quotation|So far Amnesty International has not received any evidence in support of speculation that Fr Bastian is alive in India. His body has not been found, but there is credible evidence that Fr Bastian was shot dead by army in his mission house and that his body was removed by them from the place of the incident and disposed of. The security forces surrounded the church premises around midnight January 5–6, 1985, entered the back of the mission house, and called Fr Bastian. When he approached, he is said to have been shot through the windows from the verandah in a room at the back of the mission house. After several hours, his body was reportedly removed and put on the steps of a girls school, closed to the convent, photographed after certain objects had been put around it, and in the early hours of January 6 taken away in a white van by uniformed security forces personnel believed to be from nearby Thallady Army camp.|Appendix IV - AI Index: ASA 37/04/85{{cite web |url= http://www.idcpublishers.com/ead/dsc.php?c01=all&faid=127ffaid.xml ==Memorial==