Saturday 15th June, 2024

The Sri Lanka police are known for their efficiency, which is unfortunately selective in most cases. They swing into action and make arrests in double quick time when lawbreakers happen to be ordinary people. They even act on social media videos—and rightly so—in arresting suspects. A few weeks ago, they swooped on a street food vendor in Colombo for turning abusive towards a foreign tourist who refused to be overcharged. The suspect was produced in court and bailed out.

A wicked stepfather, known as Kukul Chaminda, was arrested for assaulting a small child of his mistress. His wife, his paramour and a person who provided them with shelter while they were on the run were arrested. Another stepfather from hell was remanded the other day after being arrested for assaulting a nine-year-old girl brutally.

Curiously, no arrest has so far been made over a high-profile assault incident, at the Presidential Secretariat, where government MP Gunathilaka Rajapaksha suffered a leg injury on 02 June. He has said MP Mahindananda Althugamage set upon him after a government group meeting, chaired by President Ranil Wickremesinghe. He has found fault with the police for dragging their feet on his complaint. He has called for Aluthgamage’s arrest.

MP Aluthgamage has vehemently denied Rajapaksha’s allegation. He has said he had nothing to do with the incident. It will not be difficult for the police to examine the CCTV footage of the incident and ascertain the truth or otherwise of MP Rajapaksha’s claim. Nearly two weeks have elapsed since the incident, and the police continue to trot out lame excuses for the tardy progress in their investigation into Rajapaksha’s complaint. The Police Spokesman has come up with some absurd reasons for the delay in concluding the probe, and they were an insult to the intelligence of the public.

The police are apparently under pressure from the powers that be to delay the probe until the issue fizzles out, for action against the alleged assailant at this juncture will open a can of worms for the ruling coalition. The fact that the government is all out to hush up the incident became clear when MP Rajapaksha, who suffered a serious leg injury, was rushed to the military hospital, of all places.

MP Rajapaksha has said he will reveal everything about the alleged assault when he returns to Parliament after convalescence. But he will be mistaken if he thinks any action will be taken based on his complaint. He cannot be unaware that even the MPs who went berserk in Parliament in late 2018, assaulting their rivals and the police, damaging desks, chairs and microphones, and even menacingly lunging towards Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, who had to be whisked away, got off scot-free.

There was a live telecast of that stormy parliamentary session and the public saw the troublemakers in action. Those violent characters should have been arrested and prosecuted for their violence and damaging public property, a non-bailable offence. A fish is said to rot from the head down, and when the lawmakers break the law with impunity, in Parliament itself, it is well-nigh impossible to restore the rule of law in the country at large. So, let MP Rajapaksha be warned to brace himself for a huge disappointment. His political bosses may even force him into silence.

President Wickremesinghe is the Minister of Defence and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, and if an alleged assault on a government MP inside his Secretariat cannot be probed expeditiously, how can the public expect the government to ensure their safety and combat crime. Shouldn’t the President order the police to get cracking?

The plight of Kukul Chaminda’s little victim would not have come to light but for an intrepid boy who videoed the heart-wrenching incident and released the footage to the media. The police rewarded him. Likewise, the CCTV footage of the government group meeting and MP Rajapaksha’s fall, on 02 June, will help figure out what actually happened. One can only hope that the police will not claim that the CCTV recording is not clear or has been deleted.