Monday 14th October, 2024

The Ministry of Public Security has reportedly asked the police to pull their socks up. It has instructed Acting IGP Priyantha Weerasooriya to expedite some high-profile investigations that have been dragging on for years. Specific mention has been made of the delayed probes into the Easter Sunday terror attacks (2019), the Treasury bond scams (2015), the murder of journalist Dharmaratnam Sivaram or Taraki, which was his nom de plume coined by The Island (April 2005), the disappearance of Lalith Kumar Weeraraj and Kugan Muruganathan in Jaffna (2011), the killing of a police constable in Weligama (2023), the death of businessman Dinesh Schaffter (2022), and the disappearance of former Eastern University Vice Chancellor Prof. S. Raveendranath (2006).

The Public Security Ministry’s order that the aforesaid probes be sped up is a step in the right direction although there are many other unsolved crimes in this country. Those who murdered Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge and famous rugby player Wassim Thajudeen have not been made to pay for their crimes. It is hoped that the CID, which is known for its selective efficiency, will get cracking. Better late than never.

Investigations into the aforementioned crimes would perhaps have been in abeyance indefinitely but for last month’s regime change. Public Security Minister Vijitha Herath and President Anura Kumara Dissanayake deserve praise for their intervention, which will hopefully jolt the police into action. However, we are afraid that they have been remiss in their duties; they should have ordered a high-level probe into the execution of JVP founder Rohana Wijeweera while he was in custody in 1989.

The JVP commemorates its slain leader on 13 November. His death anniversary will fall on the eve of the next general election (14 Nov.), which the JVP-led NPP is in overdrive to win in a bid to consolidate its victory in the presidential race. The JVP may not be able to hold its annual ‘November Heroes’ commemoration during the mandatory ‘quiet period’ prior to the upcoming general election. But the NPP, which is the JVP in all but name, can order an investigation into Wijeweera’s execution and ensure that it will be conducted to a conclusion expeditiously.

The Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), a JVP off-shoot, has revealed the identity of the army officer who shot Wijeweera and had him burnt while he was still alive. Having named the killer, the FSP claimed that he was backing the NPP, which vehemently denied the allegation. The JVP however has not disputed the FSP’s assertion that the officer concerned is Wijeweera’s killer.

Thus, it will not be difficult for the JVP to bring the killer of its beloved leader to justice, and trace others who were complicit in his execution. Similarly, the JVP, which is now in power, is duty to bound to order investigations into the torture chambers where thousands of its cadres and other youth were brutally murdered in the late 1980s. While it was in the Opposition, the JVP demanded probes into the Batalanda torture chamber, the K-Point in Matara, etc.

There are survivors of torture, and one of them, Rohitha Munasinghe, has authored a book, Eliyakanda Torture Camp: K-Point, which sheds lurid light on how suspects were made to go through hell before being executed. (A review of this book appeared in The Island, under the title, ‘Ghosts of Eliyakanda’ on 17 Nov., 2017.) Munasinghe has revealed the names of some of the torturers.

In Nov., 2017, JVP heavyweight Lal Kantha called for an investigation into a spate of savage attacks on protests against the Indo-Lanka Accord and the execution of JVP leader Wijeweera in the late 1980s. Why this call has not been renewed is the question.

Wijeweera’s prophetic words that one day a JVP member would rule Sri Lanka have gone viral on social media. At the time of his tragic end, the JVP leader must have wished that his party would not let his killers go unpunished.

Maybe the JVP does not want to open a can of worms by ordering probes into brutal counterterror operations in the late 1980s, but it can order a thorough investigation into its founder’s execution. Unless it does so, it will have a hard time trying to convince the public that it is serious about having justice served for others.