A crime wave is sweeping the country. Unknown gunmen appear from dark abodes and shoot unsuspecting persons. Police officers with T 56 rifles who stand guard to protect cash in transit are shot at and money looted. Armed burglars walk into houses in the night and clean them out with consummate skill and the people are left with the clothes that they wore in the night. Life is slowly becoming so insecure that one begins to think whether the dark days of the JVP insurrection are back.
The gruesome killing of an underworld gang leader, Kalu Ajith, is a grim reminder to all of us how the law and order situation is deteriorating every day. Most people read these stories in the newspapers and forget them on the next day. They will not affect them today, and the day seems not far away that those who pay no heed to what is happening in the country will soon realise that they have become the victim of this crime wave.
Human life is no longer important nor has it any value. We see every day on the electronic media bodies of LTTE men killed, pictures in the news papers of people killed, burnt and brutalised. Civil society is becoming cannibalised by the advent of new found terror mongers, the so called army deserters. Trained in the use of sophisticated weapons they desert the army for a more lucrative trade of murder and robbery.
Kalu Ajith was a notorious criminal. He was accused of killing his guru and closest friend Chinthaka Amerasinghe. Chinthaka had a large number of cases pending against him. But he was released on bail after he made a statement associating his arch rival ‘Soththi Upali’ with the murder of Lalith Athulathmudali. He was the man who made some fantastic revelations about a man hitherto unknown called Sudu Mahaththaya connected with the actual shooting of Lalith Athulathmudali. After he made this statement which was political dynamite, he was released on bail though a number of cases against him were pending.
It will be interesting to a student of jurisprudence to study the case of Chinthaka Amerasinghe and find out how a man with such a large number of cases was released on bail. As soon as he was released on bail he became friendly with Kalu Ajith . Their common enemy was Soththi Upali. It is alleged that Chinthaka had such an extensive network of informants that it was impossible to get close to him. Chinthaka was said to be close to some government and opposition politicians and had their blessings and protection. The drug cartels paid huge sums to him for their protection, that Kalu Ajith his closest confidante decided to succeed him and killed him.
Kalu Ajith was later arrested and was remanded as a another person wanted in several murder cases. Normally it would have been impossible for anyone with less influence to obtain release from remand with such a large number of cases pending in court. Kalu Ajith was brought before the Lalith Athulathmudali Commission. He gave evidence and identified the voice of Chinthaka Amerasinghe. He was later released on bail. The Attorney-General finally consented that Kalu Ajith be released on bail and the High Court released him on bail. Every lawyer knows the difficulty in obtaining the consent of the Attorney-General if the suspect had any previous record of any criminal activity.
The manner in which Kalu Ajith and his companions were abducted, killed and then burnt shows how well the killers planned the job. There were rumours afloat about the killing. The precision of timing and skill with which the crime was committed left everyone guessing who was responsible for the killing.
It was first directed at the brother of Chinthaka Amerasinghe who had vowed to take vengeance from Kalu Ajith for his complicity in his brother’s death. The wife of Kalu Ajith made a statement to the press and said she was frightened to reveal some vital information as she herself was threatened with death. A witness said that some army officers came to his residence and inquired about Kalu Ajith, few days before the killing. She reiterated that this was not a job of a rival gang. She said Kalu Ajith could not be killed by such a gang. Then there was another rumour that Kalu Ajith was given a contract by a landowner to protect his property and another rival gang has been employed by occupier and Kalu Ajith was able to stifle the rival gang. The rival gang had no alternative but to kill Ajith. The other story was that this was a contract killing undertaken by some security forces men, as Kalu Ajith was friendly with a woman who had been the mistress of an officer in the forces. They stopped the vehicle as if they were conducting a routine security check and then abducted the occupants of the vehicle and killed them and burnt them.
The IGP immediately made a statement and denied the involvement of the forces and said they would arrest and prosecute those who were spreading such fallacious stories, without any evidence.
I believe it is far more important for the IGP to apprehend the criminals and suspects and charge them in court than to arrest those who are spreading rumours. During the period of terror the rumours spread as the insurgents or the criminals responsible for the those crimes were never apprehended and produced in court but summarily done away with. If the IGP obtains a dossier of unsolved crimes in the recent past he will see how efficient the department has been.
Increasingly the public is losing confidence in the police about maintaining law and order. The police have become a tool of the politicians governing the country. They will willingly make any sacrifice to please their masters. No effort is being made to solve crimes. People are told to give information of the would-be criminals who would have committed the offence allegedly reported by them. Some officers refuse to entertain complaints of grave crime. The offence of housebreaking is treated as trespass. Corruption has become institutionalised within the police. They refuse to act on complaints if the other side is influential or has received advanced instructions not to entertain complaints.
The criminals have their own method of solving problems of citizens. They have to be paid protection money. Now to protect life and property, the average citizen has to take refuge in criminals. The police just look the other side as they are instructed, or as they are paid by a party. It is interesting to note that to save a property from unscrupulous elements the owner has to obtain the services of gangsters. If this story is true what did the police do to protect the property. They would have told the owner that it is a civil dispute and the police are helpless to help him. But if the police wants the dispute over property which they have termed as a civil matter becomes a criminal matter and the police would come to the sight with truck load of policeman with T 56 rifles and arrest the trouble makers and remand them.
Then there is another aspect of the story. If there is a public outcry against a gruesome murder then the police would arrest someone without any evidence, and the resultant position would be that no court will find the accused guilty for want of evidence. Some of the clever and honest policemen are in “ Siberia “ and important investigations are not given to them as they served the previous regime faithfully.
The Crimes Detective Bureau which was doing a good job within the constraints was reorganised as the politicians found that most of the officers of the bureau were not to their liking. After the dreaded insurrection, the crime wave that has gripped the country is such that for a pittance one is able to kill another.
Unless this situation is immediately arrested, the City of Colombo would be a dangerous place to live in. The rule of law will perish and rule of the mob will prevail. Colombo will become Chicago. The politicians as long as they travel with a phalanx of security men will not know the danger the ordinary peace loving people of the country are undergoing.
The fundamental rights case filed on behalf of Sirisena Cooray has become one the most important cases with regard to the fundamental freedoms of the citizen. K.N. Choksy, P.C., Senior Counsel for Mr. Cooray who had made an in-depth study of the case of his client made a meal of the affidavits tendered by the State.
The most important document that was attacked by Mr. Choksy was the document marked 1R1 produced by the State to strengthen the detention of Mr. Cooray. This letter dated 14th June, 1997 had been written by no lesser person, than Chandrananda de Silva, Secretary of Defence, to CID chief T. V. Sumanasekera, requesting him to identify the manner in which the persons mentioned in his report would be a threat to national security. The heading of the letter refers to the unlawful activities of Mr. Cooray and others. What was interesting was when the IGP and the DIG CID and the NIB informed the Secretary of Defence that Mr. Cooray was allegedly involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the President in the near future at her ancestral residence at Horagolla.
The Secretary Defence was not satisfied and wanted the DIG CID to identify the manner in which the persons mentioned in his report would be a threat to national security. This letter refers to the unlawful activities of Mr. Cooray but does not refer to the alleged conspiracy to assassinate the President. Mr. Cooray was detained on 16th of June, 1997 and the subsequent report filed by the DIG CID dated has clearly stated that the additional material that they had was the fact that Soththi Upali directly or through his associates purchased some land at Horagalla.
It is obvious that even if Mr. Cooray was possessed of supernatural powers of seeing the future, he would not have even in his wildest dreams thought that Her Excellency Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga would be the President of the country. Therefore, the land purchased should have been after she became the President of the country to fit into the theory of an elaborate conspiracy to assassinate her.
It is true that sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, but bouts of hallucinations and schizophrenia of the Police trying to satisfy the political mentors of a theory to fit into the case is such that the purchase of land in Horagolla was part of an elaborate conspiracy with a view to killing the President ,supersedes even the imagination of great fiction writers like Fredrick Forsyth. When these Police Officers retire from service they can find a new vocation of supplying material to fiction writers about conspiracies and assassinations in the third world which is lapped up by the West. Our own Rosemary Rogers will be able to write a best selling fiction on the material supplied by these people.
Benazir Bhutto present Leader of the Opposition of Pakistan who made a keynote speech at the Anura Bandaranaike felicitation ceremony stated that the Supreme Court of Pakistan justified the removal of her by the President from office as Prime Minister, though she had been elected by popular mandate. She said that the Supreme Court acted mainly on newspaper reports and other material on corruption.
Ms. Bhutto forgot to tell us that after she was removed the people of Pakistan gave her opponent Nawaz Sharrif a landslide victory. Even today the popular feeling in Pakistan is that she was one ruler who had an Oxford and Harvard training but interfered with the Judiciary and tried to appoint her henchmen to judicial office. The people of Pakistan gave the Supreme Court a resounding victory when they defeated Mrs. Bhutto. The rot that has set in the South Asian countries, their politicians trying their utmost to stifle an independent judiciary is something which the ordinary people of these countries must rise against when the executive slaps detention orders on you on real or imagined fears without any basis or for no reason and bring legislation to cripple your independence the last refuge you have is the Supreme Court.
In India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka the Judges have sternly defended the rights of the ordinary people when the Executive by arbitrary action try to suppress the freedom of the people. If Mrs. Bhutto wants to come back to power she must learn not to trifle with the Judiciary.
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