Confusion worse confounded

Saturday 15th January, 2022

People’s attention has shifted from gas explosions, economic woes, forex crisis, power cuts, and other such burning problems to another very serious issue––the detection of a grenade inside All Saints Church, Borella. The manner in which the police are conducting investigations into the incident has given rise to a controversy with the Catholic clergy claiming that the investigators have been barking up the wrong tree. They have produced proof in support of their argument, which sounds cogent.

No sooner had the grenade been found in the church than a person who cleans the shrine was taken into custody on the basis of CCTV footage. He is said to be seen in the video picking up something and placing it behind a statue. Interrogations have led to the arrest of a boy, who is alleged to have been involved in the incident. This is the angle from which the police have chosen to probe the incident. Investigations are continuing.

Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith tells us something entirely different from the cops’ tale. He has told the media that the police have arrested the wrong person; he has released another part of the CCTV footage at issue, where a man carrying something in a shopping bag is seen entering the church, hanging around there for a while and leaving. The church leaders insist that the police did not examine the entire video carefully, and rushed to conclusions after watching only a part of it. The police ought to explain why they did not do so.

Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekera has disputed the Cardinal’s assertion and stood by the police. He says irrefutable evidence is already available to prove the charges against the church worker. He has drawn parallels between the church incident and the detection of a grenade at Lanka Hospital a few moons ago.

These different versions of the grenade incident have left the public confused. Who is the man seen in the video? Could he be the person who placed the grenade in the church? The police will have to trace him immediately if they are to allay doubts in the minds of people and the Catholic priests. There are so many CCTV cameras in the vicinity of the church, and it cannot be a difficult task for the police to find the suspect.

One tends to doubt what the police say because they have lost their credibility, and become putty in the hands of politicians. It is popularly said that he that has an ill name is half-hanged. The police have earned notoriety for arresting innocent people in most cases. The arrest of a former LTTE cadre over the execution-style killing of two policemen at Vavunathivu in December 2018 is a case in point. It took several months for the police to find out that the policemen had been killed by the National Thowheed Jamaath terrorists, who subsequently carried out the Easter Sunday attacks. Had they conducted a proper investigation without rushing to conclusions, and arrested the cop killers, perhaps the Easter Sunday carnage could have been prevented.

The police will have to probe the Borella incident from all angles, taking under advisement what the Cardinal and other prelates have said about it. Investigations must be conducted in a transparent manner, and no room left for doubts. Most of all, the police ought to bear in mind that there’ll be hell to pay if they have bungled.