The shock and shame of Subashini slaying

While the debate on ‘to hang or not to hang’ rages on, do more criminals get away while more and more victims fall prey?

By Kumudini Hettiarachchi

As the public, horrified over the recent brutal murders in many parts of the country, made a clarion call for the implementation of the death penalty, the police conceded that the Nugegoda Division had the dubious reputation of topping the list with regad to crimes.

The huge Nugegoda Police Division stretching from near Anula Vidyalaya to Hanwella and covering 12 police stations, including Homagama, Padukka, Thalangama, Athurugiriya, Welikada, Wellampitiya and Hanwella, has the worst crime rate in the whole country, The Sunday Times understands.

“We also have a high rate of solving crimes. Underworld eka mella karala thiyenne (We’ve controlled the underworld),” assured SSP K. Udayapala who is in charge of the division, explaining that his area was heavily populated not only with households but also with commercial establishments.

Added SSP Ananda Wijesinghe who is in charge of Nugegoda town that the number of murders, housebreakings and vehicle thefts was very high in Mirihana and Maharagama. And this terrible fact was further underlined by a murder in the heart of Nugegoda town in broad daylight, just last Tuesday sending shock waves among law-abiding men, women and children that they were not safe even in their own homes. Nugegoda has been gripped by fear after a schoolteacher was bludgeoned to death in her bed around 4.30 p.m. on November 12, while her 11-year-old daughter, who was also attacked, watched in horror.

For Subashini Seneviratne, Tuesday was a day like any other. A teacher at St. John’s College, Nugegoda, walking distance from her home off Old Kesbewa Road, a little beyond the railway crossing near the Nugegoda supermarket, The Sunday Times learns that she came home and was resting in the afternoon, when two assailants rushed into the room on the ground floor and smashed her head, leaving her in a pool of blood. Her daughter who had hidden under a mosquito net in the same room was also injured in the attack. Her 15-year-old son had been upstairs while her husband, a lawyer who is a Director of a ministry was away from Colombo.

“We think the men gained forced-entry to the house through a window in the office room and surprised her while she was sleeping,” said SSP Udayapala explaining that a short while earlier two men had come to the gate and asked a bass (mason) working in the house whether the mahaththaya was at home. “When told he was not, they had gone away. The baas had then left to have a bath in another house close-by. When he returned he heard a commotion and found Mrs. Seneviratne injured,” said Mr. Udayapala. “We have some information which we are investigating. Two police teams have been deployed on the case.”

No arrests have been made yet in this connection, added SSP Wijesinghe when contacted by The Sunday Times on Friday. The funeral of Mrs. Seneviratne was held yesterday at the Kohuwela cemetery, as a relative who declined to be named asked, “Why did this happen to them? This is a crime against civil society. Such crimes should be made a non-bailable offence. Capital punishment should be brought back immediately.”

Brutal crimes arouse horror and despair in us all, and I can understand, but not agree with calls for reviving the death penalty, stressed Suriya Wickremasinghe of the Civil Rights Movement when contacted by The Sunday Times. “It is dangerous to see this as a ‘quick fix’, and thus let attention be diverted from the real problem. Nowhere have executions (as opposed to other punishments such as long term imprisonment) been shown to have any special power to deter crime. This was best expressed by the Constitutional Court of South Africa, all eleven judges of which held the death penalty unconstitutional, when it said ‘The greatest deterrence to crime is the likelihood that offenders will be apprehended, convicted and punished. It is that which is lacking in our criminal justice system’.”

Moreover, executions are irreversible. The danger of innocent persons being convicted is particularly great where high profile crimes shock the public conscience and there is extra pressure on the police to make arrests. Can we say that our investigative, law enforcement and legal system is such that there is no real possibility of the guilty going free and scapegoats being hanged, asked Ms. Wickremasinghe.

Echoing her views, K. Tiranagama of Lawyers for Human Rights and Development said the death penalty was not the answer. “Police investigations and law’s delays need to be dealt with immediately. Murder suspects are granted bail because the prisons are full due to law’s delays. My suggestion is that we should do away with the non-summary proceedings in the Magistrate’s Courts and hear murder cases straight off in the High Courts and quickly bring about a verdict.”

The rule of law has collapsed, he said, adding that life imprisonment would be enough to curb murders. However, he feels that for crimes against society such as for narcotic rackets where vasa-visha kudu (drugs) are introduced to society, the death penalty should be enforced. “We must not allow foreign groups such as Amnesty International to poke their fingers into our affairs on such issues,” he said.

While the debate goes on whether to hang or not to hang criminals, if one is sure they are guilty with such modern technology as DNA testing, the common man’s cry is: Many are concerned about the rights of the criminals but what of the poor victims? Do victims such as the teacher beaten to death in Nugegoda or the young girl raped and killed in Mirigama have no rights?