SLLRDC to haul minister’s wife to court

The Sri Lanka Land Reclamation and Development Corporation is to file legal action next week against a top Minister’s wife to stop her from filling marshy land in Kotte, in violation of the moratorium on reclaiming marshy lands, SLLRDC Chairman said yesterday.

Deepthi Bogollagama nee Samarakoon, the wife of the Foreign Minister is reported to be filling the Diyawanna marsh at the bottom of Samarakoon Gardens, Kotte in violation of the moratorium on reclaiming marshy lands in the Colombo district, he said.
The Sunday Times exclusively exposed this illegal land grab in our issue of March 30, where we produced photographic evidence of acres of marsh that had been filled using heavy machinery and under the protection of armed guards said to be from the Ministerial Security Division.

After our exposure a Swarnavahini TV crew which went to film the illegal land grab were confronted by Ministerial Security guards guarding the place and the identity cards of the TV team had been grabbed by them. Later the TV crew had to go to the Mirihana police to recover their identity cards.

SLLRDC Chairman Karunasena Hettiarachchi said that following our exposure he had sent a strongly worded notice calling for an immediate halt to such action and followed it by close monitoring of the site by the Corporation’s Special Investigations Unit. While the filling activities came to a halt at the time, it had resumed again this month and his notice to halt filling had been returned unaccepted. There upon he had sent a second notice but to date he had received no reply.

Soon after our exposure a person claiming to be a family member of the Bogollagamas had telephoned Mr. Hettiarachchi and informed him that the lands concerned were owned by them, but the Chairman had told the purported relative that even privately owned marsh lands in the district cannot be filled because of the moratorium on reclaiming such lands.

According to neighbours the Minister and his wife, who had earlier owned the entire Samarakoon Garden had filled several acres at the same location a few years back, but that too was halted after they complained to Urban Development Deputy Minister Mahinda Amaraweera.(RA)