Editorial

The new normal after six weeks

Published

4 years ago

2021/10/3

While the relaxing, not lifting, of the quarantine curfew which ran for an extended period of six weeks was compelled by socio-economic rather than preventive imperatives, it is obvious that the country cannot let down its guard. Cognizance of this reality by the decision makers is demonstrated by the fact that the “lockdown,” as it was commonly called, has not been totally lifted. The night curfew continues to be in force from 10 pm to 4 am and inter-provincial travel is still not possible. Health guidelines widely disseminated include restrictions on eateries, restaurants, salons and various other social gatherings including weddings, funerals and parties. The whole country without exception will hope that we are gradually returning to normal and the gains of the past two months will not be frittered away as was the case with the disastrous New Year relaxation.

Those of us who left our homes during the weeks of the lockdown, for valid reasons or otherwise, are well aware that the now relaxed restrictions were not tightly enforced. Police did not stop vehicles on the roads and question occupants on where they were headed, except on very few occasions. While the pre-pandemic traffic gridlocks were not in evidence, there nevertheless were a large number of vehicles moving particularly on city streets. While many businesses were closed, several remained open. People must obviously eat and procure their essential supplies so that a total lockdown was neither practical nor possible. Certainly public transport, meaning buses and trains, were not running but it was possible for those not fortunate enough to own a vehicle, be it a car or a motorbike, to find without much difficulty a three-wheeler to get to wherever they needed to go. Most people did not go to work and that accounted for much of the reduced traffic and movement on the roads. But this is now going to change to probably somewhat less than the bad old days. We must wait and see what the availability of public transport will be under this new order and also how employers, whether private or government, will minimize work attendance or insist on workplace presence.

The latest published numbers do reveal a significant decrease in infections and fatalities. But all of us must be fully aware of how quickly this can change as it has both in this country and elsewhere. It is human nature to place the best construction on impending events and there will be the temptation to return at least to near normal. This is most likely to happen for selfish reasons regardless of both personal risk and that to the wider community. Clear breaches of social distancing rules were visible, for example, when liquor shops were permitted to open during the tail end of the so-called lock down; and even physical brawls were seen outside the ubiquitous wine stores. There is no escaping the fact that the cash-strapped government, battling sharp revenue downturns, needed the excise revenues that are a major contributor to state coffers. The decision to reopen liquor shops would have, we believe, been taken totally mindful of the dangers in order to achieve a fine balance. The fact that they were not closed again even in the context of what happened when they were reopened clearly tells its own story.

Of course restrictions, or the lack of them, have their own imperatives. All of us are only too well aware of the sorry state of public transport in this country even in the best of times. Buses and trains are badly congested particularly during peak hours and it will be a job and a half, to use a common colloquialism, to prevent overcrowding and enforce social distancing in them during the new normal effective from dawn on Friday. Although there have been assurances by private bus operators to observe health protocols, accompanied by demands for fare increases on grounds of being compelled to run half-empty buses, how long, if at all, will that last? Like almost all businesses and most ordinary people, bus owners too are feeling the pandemic crunch. So will the police go all out to strictly enforce the rules? Probably not, and if they do, will the bus owners react by withdrawing services? All these are matters that still remain to be seen.

A vitally necessary effort has been made and continues to get the tourism industry restarted to whatever extent present conditions permit. Perhaps this industry, along with self-employed daily paid workers eking out a hand-to-mouth existence, has suffered the most from the pandemic and its economic consequences. There are signs that tourists, particularly from the west, are keen on dodging the forthcoming winter and are tempted to take holidays in warmer climes. They are further enticed by attractive packages on offer. We need not belabor the fact that hundreds of thousands in this country, directly and indirectly, are dependent on tourism for their living. The economic cost to the country as a whole from the drying out of that vital source of foreign exchange is also huge. But how successful these efforts will be even in the context of travel restrictions being relaxed at home and abroad remains to be seen in the weeks ahead. The relaxation of the rules last Sinhala and Tamil New Year was, no doubt, at least partly influenced by the need to give the hotel industry at least the benefits of selling rooms to domestic tourists. But that boomeranged.

What is now necessary is the need for all of us to exercise commonsense in the new normal that dawned last week. We must all continue to wear our masks outside our homes, despite some discomfort, frequently wash our hands, refrain from unnecessary travel, observe social distancing and continue to take necessary precautions under current conditions. Remember at all times that you can be an asymptomatic covid carrier and behave accordingly.

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Editorial

Cops playing same old game

Published

12 hours ago

2026/01/19

Thilina Walpola

Monday 19th January, 2026

The police did not breathalyse NPP MP Asoka Ranwala following a serious road accident he caused last month and went out of their way to ensure that he would not undergo a blood alcohol test until more than 12 hours had elapsed. But on Friday they swiftly administered a breath test on a driver who happened to ram his vehicle into a car driven by MP Ranwala’s wife on the Kelaniya-Biyagama road, and lost no time in declaring that he was drunk. Such is the selective efficiency of the police. On the same night, the police made a public display of their servility to the NPP government in Tambuttegama, where they removed the flags put up by the SLPP in view of a political event.

Addressing a group of SLPP supporters on Saturday, MP Namal Rajapaksa vowed to stand up to what he described as state terror and defend democracy. If only he had done so while his family was in power!

Last September, the police openly backed a group of JVP activists who stormed an office of the Frontline Socialist Party in Yakkala. They went to the extent of providing security to the place which was forcibly occupied by the JVP cadres. Last Friday, a senior police officer in uniform was seen on television answering a call from someone, returning to the scene and barking orders with renewed vigour. That reminded us of IGP Pujith Jayasundera’s infamous telephone call at a public rally in Ratnapura in 2016; he was captured on camera answering a call from someone he reverentially addressed as sir, and informing the latter that he had instructed the police not to arrest a certain Nilame.

It is only wishful thinking that the rule of law can be restored when the police are made to act like the storm troopers of the ruling party. The deterioration of the Police Department is not of recent origin; it is a result of decades of politicisation under successive governments led by the SLFP, the UNP and their allies. The JVP/NPP also keeps the police under its thumb.

The Rajapaksas and their hangers-on would have the public believe that they are on a crusade to protect democracy. They seem to have a very low opinion of people’s intelligence and memory. Otherwise, they would not have sought to hoodwink the public by playing the victim card and lamenting the decline of the police and other vital state institutions due to politicisation. While in power, they unflinchingly resorted to violence to further their political interests and had the police on a string. They brought the Attorney General’s Department directly under the President and ordered the police not only to harass their political opponents but also to allow their goons to unleash violence to disrupt Opposition protests. When the media questioned the Police Spokesman why club-wielding government thugs were allowed to operate alongside the riot police, he denied the charge, claiming that they were ordinary citizens. When it was pointed out that they had been armed with clubs, he had the chutzpah to claim that they may have been carrying ‘sticks’ to ward off street dogs. In 2014, Hambantota Mayor Eraj Fernando, a staunch Rajapaksa loyalist, armed with a pistol, menacingly pursued a group of UNP-MPs who were visiting the Hambantota Port. The government spokespersons of the day unashamedly insisted that Fernando had been carrying a toy pistol. Besides, that regime used the police and military intelligence as the Oprichniki of Ivan the Terrible. Namal should be happy that the police only pulled down the SLPP’s flags in Thambuttegama on Friday, and there were no incidents of violence.

However, it is undeniable that the police acted in a despicable manner in Thambuttegama on Friday. It was obvious that they did so at the behest of some JVP/NPP politicians who did not want the SLPP to put on a show of strength in the hometown of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and some ministers. The NPP government, which came to power promising a radical departure from the past political culture is emulating its predecessors and making the police do dirty political work for it.

In Sri Lanka, supermajorities are cursed. When power goes to their heads, politicians take leave of their senses and lay bare their true faces. There is hardly anything that they do not do to retain their hold on power. But it is counterproductive to suppress political dissent, and the governments that do so dig their own political graves; when they lose power, they find that the boot is on the other foot, with the police grovelling before the new rulers.

Unless the JVP/NPP fulfils its promise to replace the current rotten political culture with a new one, it may have the police pulling down its own flags in Thambuttegama and elsewhere under another government, perhaps, sooner than expected.

Editorial

Illusory rule of law

Published

1 day ago

2026/01/18

Thilina Walpola

We have witnessed many false dawns, with self-proclaimed messiahs winning elections purportedly to put the country right and subsequently reneging on their solemn pledges in keeping with the Machiavellian maxim on promises.

One of the key campaign promises of the ruling JVP-led NPP was to restore the rule of law, which had been undermined by successive governments. The public reposed their trust in the NPP, expecting it to honour its promise and straighten up the legal system. But its pledge has gone unfulfilled, and government politicians and their supporters remain above the law, which is enforced strictly only when transgressors happen to be Opposition politicians and their cronies. The police, who even use force against ordinary people and the political rivals of the government over minor transgressions, unashamedly baulk at arresting the NPP politicians who commit serious offences.

No sooner had four Buddhist monks and five others been remanded, on Thursday, for allegedly violating coast conservation laws by putting up a shrine in Trincomalee than it was reported that the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau (GSMB) had sent a strongly worded letter to the Chairman of the Galgamuwa Pradeshiya Sabha (PS) over illegal soil excavation in some forest reserves in the PS area. The GSMB’s letter is a damning indictment of the NPP. It has revealed that a group of ruling party politicians and their supporters obstructed a team of GSMB officials during a raid on an illegal soil excavation site and forcibly secured the release of seven tractors and their drivers taken into custody. The police, who were present on the scene, just looked on. The GSMB has reminded the PS Chairman that its officers are legally empowered to conduct raids in any part of the country to prevent illegal activities.

How would the police have responded if a group of Opposition politicians and their backers had obstructed the GSMB personnel and the police during a raid? They would have been arrested immediately and hauled up before court, and perhaps the police would have held a special media briefing to announce the arrests.

No action has been taken against those who carried out illegal soil excavation in Galgamuwa and obstructed the GSMB officers and the police. One may recall that the police lost no time in arresting Chairman of the Matugama PS Kasun Munasinghe (SJB) recently over a mere allegation that he had obstructed the PS Secretary. There is irrefutable evidence that the NPP politicians and their supporters obstructed the GSMB officers and the police in Galgamuwa. Has the current government adopted the credo of the pigs in Orwell’s Animal Farm and decreed that all politicians are equal but the NPP politicians are more equal than others? Breathalyzers mysteriously disappear from police stations when an NPP MP causes a road accident allegedly under the influence of alcohol, and the CID resorts to dilatory tactics, such as seeking the Attorney General’s opinion unnecessarily, when they are required to arrest government politicians charged with forgery. Police officers who raid cannabis plantations that allegedly belong to NPP politicians or their relatives are arrested and transferred or suspended from service.

Ven. Balangoda Kassapa Thera, one of the four Buddhist monks remanded on Wednesday, reportedly launched a fast on Thursday. Those who are supportive of the shrine project in Trincomalee have demanded to know why the police and the Department of Coast Conservation and Coastal Resource Management have not removed the unauthorised business places, etc., in the coastal buffer zones in Trincomalee and elsewhere.

The police and the Coast Conservation officials owe an explanation. They have steered clear of many unauthorised structures in Trincomalee and other parts of the country. The western coastal buffer zone is dotted with illegal constructions including restaurants and hotels. Political interference and corruption have prevented their demolition. The NPP government has failed to be different from its predecessors which earned notoriety for the selective enforcement of the law.

Editorial

Crime and cops

Published

2 days ago

2026/01/17

Thilina Walpola

Saturday 17th January, 2026

The police headquarters has released an AI-generated image of a suspect wanted in connection with a fatal shooting incident in Dehiwala on 09 Jan., 2026, and sought public assistance to arrest him. AI has made the task of creating facial composites much easier. The public no doubt must cooperate with the police and help combat crime, but much more needs to be done to neutralise the dangerous underworld gangs.

Two notorious criminals and a female suspect arrested in Dubai were brought back yesterday. Dubai has become a haven for Sri Lankan criminals, and everything possible must be done to arrest all of them there and repatriate them here to stand trial for their crimes.

There have been several shooting incidents so far this year, and a couple of lives, including that of a teenager, have been lost. Last year saw more than 100 incidents of gun violence, which claimed scores of lives. One can only hope that the police will be able to bring the situation under control this year. Hope is said to spring eternal.

Underworld gangs have amply demonstrated their ability to strike at will anywhere although some of their leaders have been arrested. The police swing into action after shooting incidents and go hell for leather to arrest the shooters; in some cases, they succeed in their endeavour. Crime prevention is apparently not their forte.

Last year, a much-advertised campaign was launched to crush crime syndicates involved in drug dealing, killings and gun running. It yielded some discernible results, but very little is heard of it these days. Has it gone the same way as the past anti-crime operations?

Identikits, manually created or A-generated, could be deceptive in some cases however useful they may be in tracking down criminals on the run. This is a fact investigators should bear in mind lest they should arrest the wrong persons and torture them in the name of interrogating them.

It was alleged last week that the police had put a man to the question simply because he resembled a suspect in an identikit released to the media. The victim has claimed that he went to a police station in Colombo of his own volition after realising that there was a striking similarity between him and the suspect composite in question, only to be beaten mercilessly and asked to make a confession to a crime that he had not committed. The police have denied his claim. A thorough investigation must be conducted into the alleged incident.

Cases of mistaken identity are not rare in Sri Lanka, where the police make arrests hastily and consider suspects guilty until they are proven innocent. They have earned notoriety for acting according to their whims and fancies or at the behest of their political masters in arresting suspects. This is one of the reasons why the conviction rate remains extremely low in this country. It is between 4% and 6%. Some studies have even placed it at 2%.

Meanwhile, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) must not be made to conduct politically motivated investigations, which prevent it from carrying out its duties and functions efficiently. Its raison d’etre is probing crimes, but successive governments have reduced it to a mere appendage of the party in power. Today, the situation has taken a turn for the worse, with government politicians rushing to the CID at the drop of a hat, demanding investigations. This practice must be brought to and end.