Saturday 5th October, 2024

The police top brass is reported to have held a meeting recently to discuss the progress of high-profile criminal investigations. Among the other issues taken up at the discussion attended by Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security Ravi Seneviratne, Acting IGP Priyantha Weerasuriya and other high-ranking officers from the CID, etc., were the probes that had been either delayed or derailed, we are told. Such discussions usually take place when governments change; they receive much publicity and hold out hope initially, but nothing come of them eventually. It is hoped that the aforesaid discussion will not go the same way as the previous ones.

For the first time in Sri Lanka’s post-Independence history, a government with no affiliations to the UNP or the SLFP or their offshoots, such as the SLPP, has been formed. The governments, led by those parties, did not go all out to investigate offences committed under previous administrations and bring the culprits to justice as they feared that they themselves would have to face similar consequences when out of power. This quid pro quo may explain why those who should have been imprisoned for various offences years ago remain free today. The prevailing culture of impunity is one of the reasons why the people supported the NPP in the recently-concluded presidential election.

The NPP administration will have to live up to their expectations. Its opponents argue that although the JVP, the largest constituent of the NPP, has not wielded state power previously, it was part of the SLFP-led UPFA coalition, which won the 2004 general election, and it honeymooned with the UNP during the Yahapalana government; therefore its track record is far from squeaky clean. The only way the NPP can prove its critics wrong and retain public support is to have the unsolved crimes committed under previous regimes probed thoroughly and the perpetrators thereof brought to justice.

One of the main election pledges of the NPP was to restore the rule of law and ensure that crimes would not go unpunished. The killers of Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge and rugby player Wasim Thajudeen are still at large. The police obviously connived with the politicians and their kith and kin blamed for those crimes, and chose to drag their feet on investigations thereinto. The mastermind behind the Treasury bond rackets has not been traced, and no serious effort has been made to have former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran extradited from Singapore to stand trial for the scams. The state coffers lost billions of rupees due to the sugar tax scam under the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government. The need for a thorough probe into that racket cannot be overstated. The politicians involved in the on-arrival visa racket have not been arrested, and they must be made to face the full force of the law without further delay.

As for the Easter Sunday carnage, there is no need for another protracted probe. The Catholic Church has categorically stated that National Thowheed Jamath leader Zahran Hashim’s handler, who called himself Abu Hind, masterminded the terror attacks; Abu Hind’s real identity is known to the current Secretary to Public Security Seneviratne and the members of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry that probed the carnage, according to Spokesman for the Colombo Archdiocese Rev. Fr. Cyril Gamini Fernando. It defies comprehension why ‘Abu Hind’ has not been arrested yet.

There is no reason why the NPP administration cannot order high-level probes into the aforesaid scams and killings posthaste. Verbalising about the virtues of justice and the rule of law won’t do. Let the new leaders be asked to fish or cut bait.