The Sri Lanka Press Institute has said it lodges its strong protest at the manner in which Sudar Oli Editor N. Vithyatharan was taken into custody on Thursday morning at a funeral parlour in Mount Lavinia from where he was dragged out by some men in police uniform and others in civvies. The statement said:
If the editor was needed by police for purposes of an investigation, he or indeed any other citizen, should have been told why he was required, shown the Magistrate’s warrant permitting the arrest and taken away without the rough housing that was evident. The methods used were, to say the least, deplorable.
We do not know whether Mr. Vithyatharan was taken away for good reason or bad and without that knowledge will not comment on that matter. But the fact that the police spokesman first told the media that he had been abducted by a group of gunmen and driven off in a white van, and the story later changed to say that he was arrested by the Colombo Crimes Bureau, implies either an attempted cover-up in the first instance or that the left hand of the police does not know what the right hand is doing.
Eye witnesses at the funeral parlour where the editor was standing by his publisher who was to later perform the obsequies at a relative’s funeral said that three men in police uniform tried to take the editor away and when this was resisted by Mr.. Vithyatharan and others present, three others in civilian dress came out and dragged Mr. Vithyatharan along the floor, bundled him into the white van and then drove him away. The SLPI strongly asserts that the manner of the arrest and the use of a white van for this purpose are most deplorable. |
E-mail