Monday 24th February, 2025

Sri Lanka’s focus has been shifted from Budget 2025 and the economy to the netherworld of crime and narcotics for all intents and purposes. Since President Anura Kumara Dissanayake presented the NPP government’s maiden budget on 17 Feb., a spree of underworld attacks has sparked a kind of national discourse on crime and criminals.

Close on the heels of Wednesday’s courtroom killing, which shook the country, two suspects arrested for gunning down a person in Kotahena, Colombo, were fatally shot allegedly in a scuffle with the police during ‘a search for weapons’ at Crow Island. A policeman also suffered injury in the clash, we are told. Those killings have provided grist to the Opposition’s mill, and left the NPP government on a sticky wicket.

Friday’s custodial deaths are viewed in some quarters as a sign of the culture of extrajudicial executions returning. This is something a government needs like a hole in the head, especially ahead of an important election. So, it is only natural that the NPP administration had the Acting IGP and the Secretaries to the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Public Security give a press conference as a damage control measure, on Saturday. Theirs was an attempt to mitigate the political impact of the surge in crime, the courtroom murder and the custodial deaths on the government.

Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security, former SDIG Ravi Seneviratne, addressing the media, went so far as to attribute the increase in criminal activity to a conspiracy. Giving what may be considered a political twist to the issue, he claimed that there was an attempt to derail investigations into the past emblematic crimes including the Easter Sunday carnage and destabilise the country. He said he had received intelligence reports to that effect; those behind that sinister move had been identified and legal action would be taken against them. Going by his claim, there is a threat to national security. But President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who is also the Minister of Defence, has categorically stated, in Kandy, that there is no threat to national security. Hasn’t the President taken Seneviratne’s claim seriously, or doesn’t think a move to destabilise the country serious enough to be considered a threat to national security?

Interestingly, in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday tragedy (2019), the then President Maithripala Sirisena claimed that the terror attacks had been intended to scuttle his war on the underworld, especially the drug Mafia. Now, Seneviratne, who was the SDIG in charge of the CID at the time, tells us that the ongoing underworld attacks are aimed at derailing the Easter Sunday carnage probe among other things!

As for conspiracies, we are reminded of what ex-SDIG Seneviratne stated in his testimony before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) that probed the Easter Sunday terror attacks. He and 10 other witnesses insisted that there had been an external hand behind the Easter Sunday carnage. Among others were Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and former SSP Shanie Abeysekera.

The police are duty-bound to ensure the safety of all suspects in custody. Friday’s custodial deaths have left another blackmark on the police. A thorough investigation is called for. The police narrative about the killing of the aforesaid crime suspects reminds us of actor/director-turned NPP MP Jagath Manuwarne’s popular teledrama, ‘Kodi Gaha Yata’, wherein a suspect is killed and a policeman suffers injury to a leg under similar circumstances.

The prevailing culture of custodial deaths has rendered everyone vulnerable. First, they come for criminals, and whom they will come for next is anybody’s guess. More importantly, the Sri Lanka police have earned notoriety for wrongful arrests, which are legion. The way they acted following the murder of Seya Sewwandi, a four-year-old girl, in Kotadeniyawa, in 2015, is a case in point. Three suspects including a schoolboy were taken into custody on suspicion and vilified before the real murderer was arrested. Thankfully, the police did not take any of those suspects out as part of ‘an operation to trace illegal firearms’!

Worryingly, the focus of the ongoing public discussion is on the criminals and their rights rather than the victims of crime. Much is being spoken about the serious security lapses that led to the killing of Ganemulle Sanjeewa in the dock, but his victims numbering dozens, and the predicament of their families crying out for justice have not received much attention. The deaths of two suspects in a police shooting are being discussed in Parliament and on political platforms, but the person who perished at their hands in Kotahena has been forgotten.