5th Column

My dear IGP Pujith,
I thought I must write to you because your behaviour and the conduct of the entire Police force has become the focus of attention in recent times. All of you are becoming a bit like our cricket team- just when we think you can’t descend any lower, you seem to find a new depth to which you sink.

High ranking police officers at the DIG level have been accused of allegedly plotting to assassinate Maithri and Gota, no less. Your own conduct has come under a cloud with allegations of bribery being made against you. Even Police sergeants are running around, threatening to kill themselves.

Even though the entire country is talking about the Police and how its officers behave and some people are openly suggesting that you should hang up your khaki uniform and go home, I am not sure whether you are bothered by all this. That is because courting controversy is nothing new to you.

Your appointment itself was controversial. You were the first IGP appointed by the National Police Commission, after the ‘yahapaalanaya’ government brought about changes to the Constitution. It was thought that you would be independent and not a political appointee. Many people doubt that now.

I do sympathise with you. Previously, IGPs had to serve only one political master. We remember how Mahinda maama appointed his namesake as IGP and he served his Lord and Master extremely well, so much so that even when he could no longer be kept in the job, he was sent as our envoy to Brazil.

You, on the other hand, have a much more difficult task and that is figuring out who your real Lord and Master is, since the ‘yahapaalanaya’ government consists of both Blues and Greens. When you please the Greens, the Blues get angry. When you serve the Blues, the Greens get annoyed.

On the one hand, though the Police Commission recommends your appointment it is Maithri who appoints you in his capacity as Commander in Chief. On the other hand, your Minister is from the Greens and right now, it is that Madduma Bandara chap. So, it is no wonder that you have problems.

You must surely remember that famous phone call you took from someone, where you assured that a ‘nilame’ would not be arrested. You addressed that someone as ‘sir’, so it must have been a very important person. In that incident, I think that ‘someone’ lost his portfolio, while you kept your job!

Whatever your fate is, you can rest assured that you have made history in the Police Force. It was you who introduced meditation to the Police by asking that everyone in uniform meditates for fifteen minutes every day. The problem with that was, it was not a request, but an order sent out in a circular.

I don’t know how you can ‘order’ someone to meditate if they don’t want to. And, having seen CCTV videos- leaked by your own officers- of you trying to assault lift operators and harass reception staff in your office, I am not sure whether you really meditate. If you do, it doesn’t seem to be helping you!

Now, matters have become more serious with all these stories of an assassination plot. Of course, we still don’t know whether this is fact or fiction. The problems with that story is that it is about assassinating not one person but two and both of them could be contenders at the next big election.

That is why you should have been careful in dealing with it. So, when you sent that DIG on a transfer until investigations were completed – instead of sending him on leave- and then joined him in a ‘bodhi pooja’, many smelled a rat. You even ignored orders from the Police Commission on this issue.

That is probably why even Maithri lashed out at you when ministers met this week and hinted that you should probably be looking for a new job. This is the same Maithri who told you a few weeks ago not to exercise too much because that could make you ill and he couldn’t be looking for another IGP!

You must have realised by now, IGP, that you will not have permanent friends or permanent enemies in the job you do. I think the time has come for you to think carefully about what you should do next. If you need advice- and because our Police is so much like our cricket team- you should ask Angelo!

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS- Recently, there was a picture of you in uniform trying to mimic the dance of Kandyan dancers at the esala perahera. Some said you were insulting our traditions and the Police. Others saw nothing wrong with that, saying you were simply enjoying yourself. What you should realise though is that what matters is not the dance itself, but whose tune you should dance to!