Minister Bogol’s land filling halted

The illegal filling of the Diyawanna marsh at the end of Samarakoon Garden by Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama as part of a massive urban land grab of several acres was abruptly halted this week when the Special Investigations Unit of the Sri Lanka Land Reclamation and Development Corporation delivered a strongly worded letter calling on an immediate halt to the operation.
Urban Development Minister Dinesh Gunawardena who ordered this action after The Sunday Times splashed the news last week of what appeared to be an illegal land grab, said that he expects the ‘wrong doers’ to restore the marsh to its original position, failing which legal action would be taken.

Neighbours said though the dumping of fresh gravel to reclaim the marsh had stopped early this week after intervention by SLLRDC, workers were busy building a wall around the several acres they had already filled.

Minister Gunawardena said he had instructed the Kotte Municipal authorities to act in the matter as the wall was being built around an illegally reclaimed marsh. SLLRDC Chairman Karunasena Hettiarachchi too said it was up to the Municipality to withhold permission to build such a wall.

Mr. Hettiarachchi said soon after his letter ordering the halting of the illegal filling of the marsh was delivered a family member of Minister Bogollagama had telephoned him and had claimed that the lands concerned were owned by them, but he had told the purported relative even privately owned marsh lands in Colombo cannot be filled because of the existing moratorium on reclaiming such lands.

Up to yesterday, he said he had not received any reply from either Minister Bogollagama or his spouse, who is still said to own part of Samarakoon Garden. The Sunday Times learns both Mr. and Mrs. Bogollagama had gone on a four-nation tour on the very day the SLLRDC letter was delivered. They are expected back on April 12.

In the meantime, Mr. Hettiarachchi said the Corporation’s Special Investigations Unit would continue to monitor the situation every two days, while avoiding any controversy. Contacted regarding the unauthorized wall, Kotte Mayor Ms. Chandra Silva said she had directed the Municipal Engineer to intervene in the matter.

Meanwhile, the media accreditation cards of two Swarnavahini journalists who visited the location to video the illegal land filling, were seized by the Ministerial Security Division (MSD) guards deployed for Mr. Bogollagama. Two persons, saying that they were from the MSD, had demanded that they produce their media accreditation cards on the basis that they had entered the premises forcibly.

The journalists had then given their accreditation cards to the officers, but had later made a complaint to the Mirihana police, who had recovered the identity cards from the MSD officers. The accreditation cards were later returned to the journalists.

SP Deshabandu Tennakoon of the Mirihana police said that the MSD officers had taken the accreditation cards as they felt suspicious of the two persons.“The MSD officers have thought that the journalists were trying to take pictures of the land secretly and were suspicious of possible LTTE links. So they had asked for their IDs to verify,” he said.

SP Tennakoon said that a police officer was sent to the scene once a complaint was made by the two journalists and their media accreditation cards returned to them within half an hour. He added that as far as the police are concerned, the matter has now been closed.