Rishad Bathiudeen is a Sri Lankan parliamentarian and former senior cabinet minister. He is the leader of the All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC) Party, a registered political party in Sri Lanka. Bathiudeen was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) from the Vanni Electoral District in December 2001 and was re-elected in April 2004, after which he was again re-elected in April 2010 and 2015 June from the same Electoral District which comprises Vavuniya, Mannar and Mullathivu Administrative Districts. Rishad Bathiudeen holds a National Diploma in Technology (NDT) in Civil Engineering from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka and is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Engineering (C.I.E.) in the UK.

On 21 April 2019, Easter Sunday, three churches in Sri Lanka and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital, Colombo, were targeted in a series of coordinated ISIS-related terrorist suicide bombings. Later that day, two smaller explosions occurred at a housing complex in Dematagoda and a guest house in Dehiwala. A total of 269 people were killed, including at least 45 foreign nationals, three police officers, and eight suicide bombers. An additional 500 were injured. The church bombings were carried out during Easter services in Negombo, Batticaloa and Colombo; the hotels bombed included the Shangri-La, Cinnamon Grand, Kingsbury and Tropical Inn. According to the State Intelligence Service, a second wave of attacks was planned, but was prevented due to government raids.