The High Price Of Our Culpable Inaction
By Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena -August 12, 2012
Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena
Public debate is rife with heated opinions in regard to the virtual breakdown of the law and order process in Sri Lanka. The government continues to deny that there is a steep rise in crime and quite absurdly blames the media for reporting on crime. The root causes for this deterioration in law and order, namely the involvement of politicians from the highest to the lowest level in the underworld and the nefarious activities of corrupt police officers, are however glibly passed over.
The public right to know
This week, we hear the frightening story of an organized gang which had abducted an employee of a business establishment in Colombo and kept him in unlawful detention for three days in order to torture him. This treatment was for the alleged stealing of the owner’s wife’s necklace. After the detention and torture, when nothing was disclosed presumably because he did not in fact steal the necklace, he was released and severely warned not to complain. A local government politician was a member of that gang. In what seems to be a welcome contrast to the ordinary story of impunity, the Colombo Crimes Division had made some arrests this week and other arrests, including that of the local government politician were pending (Island, August 7th 2012). Let us see however whether the arrests would lead to concrete consequences in terms of the law.
We would like to know meanwhile the exact punishment meted out to the Chairman (past? present?) of the Tangalle local authority accused of wantonly killing a British tourist in December last year and of raping his Russian girlfriend? Letters have been put into the public domain where the removal of this character (now apparently out on bail) from party positions and official posts was thereafter revoked. Is this the actual position or not? The public deserves to know.
