Been there, seen that!
March 7, 2016, 7:23 pm
A sharp increase in underworld activities during the last few weeks has jolted the government into action. The long arm of the law has gone into overdrive. An elaborate plan to combat crime has been unveiled. Several special police units have been set up to take on the netherworld of crime and narcotics, we are told.
Been there, seen that!
Governments have reacted in this manner for the last several decades to assuage people’s anger and ward off an adverse political fallout. Our experience has been that the much-publicised operations against the underworld fizzle out with the passage of time. The police and politicians have mastered the art of hoodwinking the public.
Some Opposition grandees have torn into the government for the rise in the crime rate. They have sought to make it out to be unprecedented. But, in fairness to the current administration, it needs to be said that the increase in the crime rate is of no recent origin. The underworld has always remained active and powerful.
Leaders of the former administration are now calling upon their successors to eliminate the underworld. They seem to have taken the people for suckers! If they had fought criminals effectively while they were in power the country would have been free from organised crime. True, the former government carried out some operations against the underworld, but it did not go the whole nine yards. The STF was prevented from cracking down on notorious drug dealers and crime syndicates with links to politicians. When the police commandos zeroed in on pro-government criminals under the previous dispensation some political leaders intervened to stop police raids and went so far as to give suspects bear hugs in public. The half-hearted, selective forays into the underworld naturally did not yield any results. That may explain why not a single day passes without a serious crime being reported.
The country has come to such a pass that today staging a bank heist is as easy as withdrawing cash from an ATM. Armed robbers just walk in and make off with millions of rupees. It is laughable that the police have sought to prevent bank robberies by banning full-face helmets which criminals use to conceal their identities! A few decades ago, stray dogs used to be shot dead in public places. That unspeakable practice has come to an end owing to animal rights activists’ protests. Today, dogs are safe but men and women get gunned down like canines. Suspects are not safe even in court houses and inside prison vehicles!
Time was when governments used the personnel of VIP security divisions as stormtroopers to harass and even kill their political opponents. The situation has improved under the present government but, sadly, a ruling party MP’s bodyguards have carried out an abduction.
The blame for this sorry state of affairs should be apportioned to the UNP and the SLFP. They have used criminals to do their political work and facilitated the expansion of the underworld. They have given notorious criminals presidential pardons and even recruited them to VVIP security divisions. They used underworld figures like Gonawala Sunil and Beddegana Sanjeewa as hit men.
A prerequisite for neutralizing the underworld is severing the nexus between criminals and politicians. In the run-up to the last parliamentary election, too, we saw the involvement of violent elements in some politicians’ campaigns.
The problem with anti-crime operations is that they are political circuses. They help eliminate some criminals instead of organised crime. What is called for is a sustained campaign against the underworld while action is taken to increase the conviction rate which is currently as low as four percent and provide the police with the much-needed resources, both human and physical. Above all, police personnel tasked with the anti-crime operations must be given a free hand.
