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‘God and prayers of predominantly Sinhalese patients protected me’
“In the cell, they let me keep a 1.5litre plastic drink bottle. Nobody gets a pillow. But I have problems falling asleep with my head on the floor. When you fill the bottle and reduce the water a little bit, it becomes flexible. I slept with my head on a bottle for 46 days in the CID. I got used to it.”
Shafi Shihabdeen’s ordeal began on May 23, 2019, when a Sinhala-language newspaper published a front-page lead alleging the doctor—who the article alleged was a member of the National Thowheed Jamath, a group then suspected of having carried out the coordinated Easter Sunday bombings—had surreptitiously sterilized 4,000 Sinhala Buddhist mothers while carrying out C-sections.
Dr. Shihabdeen: The ordeal is far from over
For the first time since his incarceration and release on bail, Dr Shihabdeen spoke to the Sunday Times about what he and his family have endured. What has protected him, he says, is God along with the blessings and prayers of his predominantly Sinhalese patients.
Dr Shihabdeen was a senior house officer (SHO) at KTH specialising in female reproductive health. In 2015, he resigned from the Health Ministry to contest the election on the United National Party (UNP) ticket. He stopped just short of entering Parliament.
During a pre-poll interview, Dr Shihabdeen told a journalist that he had performed around 8,000 C-sections during his career. The allegation now was that, in 4,000 of those, he had carried out illegal tubal ligations to render Sinhala Buddhist mothers, specifically, sterile.
To most medical practitioners, the claim was fantastical. This is evidenced by statements of ob-gyn doctors, nurses, staff and others recorded during the ensuing judicial and official investigation. Some medical experts have publicly challenged the accusations.
Dr Shihabdeen is from Kalawewa Muslim village, the largest and oldest Muslim settlement in the Anuradhapura district. His paternal grandfather was the hometown’s first Government servant–the first to wear trousers–and taught Pali language to young Buddhist monks at the Vijithapura Raja Maha Vihara. His father was a school principal and his mother, a housewife.
The youngest of three children, Dr Shihabdeen’s sister and brother are a doctor and accountant, respectively. He passed out from the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the Sri Jayewardenepura University. In 2003, he married Imara, also a doctor and his junior. They settled in Kurunegala, her hometown. After joining the Health Ministry in 2004, he served in the Central Province. He was attached to the Dambulla hospital when he quit for the election.
Gradually, Dr Shihabdeen also engaged in private practice. He set up a successful laboratory in Kurunegala town and carried out other businesses such as trading in vehicles and textiles. An agreement he had struck with three friends to buy a property in Kurunegala town–where they deposited several millions of rupees to his account to make the purchase–later became the target of CID investigations that are ongoing.
The election got him 54,000 votes but not enough for a Parliamentary seat. Nearly 16 months after the poll, the Health Ministry reinstated him and two other doctors who had lost. He continued working in ob-gyn at KTH from February 2018 to May 2019, when he was arrested.
There had been tension among Muslims everywhere since the attacks in April 2019. Muslims in the area, including well-known community leaders, were taken in over vague charges. Some spent days in incarceration before release. Dr Shihabdeen heard rumours that he was a target. His wife wanted to leave the country and to return when the situation eased.
“I was scared but I kept questioning why anyone would arrest me,” he said. “I didn’t like to live out of my country because I love my country. I had so many chances to move in the past. Even today, I say it is the wishes and prayers of poor patients that protected me because I worked hard for them. If you relieve the pain and suffering of a person, they talk to you from the heart.”
That is not to say Dr Shihabdeen was universally popular at the hospital, particularly among some seniors. His policy was: “Go, do my job and leave.” He didn’t spend time chatting. He was sought after by staff who wanted ‘Shafi mahattaya’ to do their surgeries, scans, examinations, and so on.
It was Dr Shihabdeen that delivered former Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) President Anuruddha Padeniya’s second baby via C-section. “Although I am a member of the GMOA, I stood strongly against them when it came to strikes because while you might achieve something it is at the cost of patient rights,” he maintained. “They suffer. So I don’t do strikes and they [GMOA] said I wasn’t cooperating with them.”
There were others, some of them influential, who passed snide comments at Dr Shihabdeen. Sometimes, words were exchanged. He was considered headstrong and brash. In his own words: “I didn’t bow my head to anyone. I minded my own business. But I never thought it would cause this much damage to me.”
The newspaper article rapidly escalated into a storm with one well-known gynaecologist backing the claim that Dr Shihabdeen was guilty of illegal sterilisation. There were death threats on social media. By the morning of May 24, he felt afraid to report to work. He was refused security outside the premises.
He was at the mosque with his 12-year-old son that night for prayers after fasting when he received a message saying the police were at his home. He rushed back. They made small talk. He relayed to them how he had been unfairly targeted. They took him to the police station, ostensibly to file a complaint against a senior doctor who had written a Facebook post echoing the allegations in the newspaper article.
At the police station, he wanted a complaint recorded on the injustice caused to him. It was not done. Then they took him back home, this time to search his house. They ordered the CCTV to be switched off. They took the children’s computers, the laptop, briefcase and old phones. They even grabbed his wife’s Quran.
The police escorted him back to the station. He wasn’t allowed to call a lawyer. His phones were confiscated. He was sat on a chair with a police constable (PC) who would not let him leave or take down his complaint. He didn’t know why he was detained (if, indeed, he was in detention). When he offered to go home and return the next day, the PC said he couldn’t do that. Nobody was allowed to see him.
“I was completely isolated,” Dr Shihabdeen recalled. “Will they keep me or let me go? I didn’t know the system and had no one to ask. I felt helpless.”
The next morning two relatives were permitted to give him biscuits and water. The police told him they were keeping him for investigations on higher instructions. He was taken to the crime branch where, again, he was sat in a chair. His lawyer wasn’t given access. The questioning began–not on the forced sterilization but on his personal and family history.
Outside, news was abuzz with his arrest. Journalists arrived at the police station. “After that, I heard talk of arresting me,” Dr Shihabdeen said. “They were going to hand me over to the CID. I had no idea for what. There are procedures to be followed. I was fingerprinted and strip-searched. It was more mental trauma.”
Handcuffs were put on him before he was transferred to CID custody. It was around 6 pm on May 25. He had to be shown to the Judicial Medical Officer (JMO). The police took him to KTH, his own hospital. “In front of the whole world, in handcuffs,” he said. “Everyone was watching me, people who had worshipped me, respected me. Some attendants had tears in their eyes.”
Dr Shihabdeen ended up in the notorious fourth floor of the CID headquarters in Colombo. He remembers that place in graphic detail. There were three crowded cells. He was told that drug kingpin Makandure Madush was in one.
“I wondered what I had done to fall to the same level as him and for society to treat me like this,” he said. “I felt deep disappointment. I didn’t cry. There was no point. My goal was to come out. I had a strong belief that I would not be harmed. God will save me. Allah came to my mind even when they placed the handcuffs on me.”
Dr Shihabdeen spent 46 days at the CID, receiving bail only on July 25 after also spending two weeks also at the Kegalle prison. He was taken under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He underwent several rounds of questioning. Witnesses were sometimes brought to the CID to provide statements. “I maintained that every allegation that was levelled was irrelevant to me and that they will understand this in time,” Dr Shihabdeen said.
The family suffered deeply. They left their home the night he was taken in. Imara took the children out of their respective schools and came to Colombo. But even Muslims wouldn’t give space to “Dr Shafi’s wife”. She once climbed seven stories, only to be turned away from an apartment she wanted to rent. Just one couple who were friends put them up.
“She was under tremendous pressure and scared throughout,” he said. “She had to find schools. She couldn’t continue to work in Kurnuegala so she had to arrange a transfer. She had no money in hand. My accounts were frozen. Journalists were chasing her. If she spoke publicly, she couldn’t protect the children. She was afraid of being targeted, even killed.”
The children moved from Kurunegala to Colombo to Kalmunai and back to Kandy, where they live now. But their existence is still far from normal. And they still don’t know why them.
| Many more battles to face Dr Shafi Shihabdeen continues to defend himself on multiple fronts. The Health Ministry sent him on compulsory leave following his remand, citing the Establishments Code. He appealed to the Public Service Commission (PSC) seeking his reinstatement and payment of salary with arrears. On the PSC’s directive, the Health Ministry in December, while not recalling him, ordered his dues be settled. This is yet to be done. Following the directives, the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital (KTH), where Dr Shihabdeen last worked, summoned him in late December to provide a statement in a “preliminary inquiry” it had started. The letters were issued two-and-a-half years after the allegation of illegal sterilizations first surfaced. Last year, the PSC served Dr Shihabdeen with three charge sheets related to, among other things, changing the name of a bed-head ticket; being a director of a private company between June 2017 and May 2019; and allowing his wife to make an entry in his official logbook. He showed cause, was severely reprimanded and had a salary increment withheld. The inquiry is closed. Separately, Dr Shihabdeen in June 2019 filed a Fundamental Rights petition in the Supreme Court. It is yet to be heard. The main case against him is pending in the Kurunegala Magistrate Court. He has not been charged. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) continues to report facts to Court after starting a new probe in December 2019. After his arrest, he was additionally accused of amassing illegal wealth and being linked with a terrorist organization. The case will be taken up again on Friday. | |
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