Does whistle-blowing amount to murder?

Tuesday 23rd November, 2021

Sri Lanka Police seem to think whistle-blowing amounts to an offence which is as serious as murder when it hurts political windbags in power. Otherwise, the Murder Investigation Unit of the CID would not have summoned and interrogated ex-Director General of the Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) Thushan Gunawardena, who exposed the Sathosa garlic scam. He was interrogated for six hours, we are told. The CID says it acted on a complaint made by Minister of Trade Bandula Gunawardena. What we gather from the CID’s line of questioning is that it is concocting a conspiracy theory to facilitate a witch-hunt against the independent media, whistle-blowers and the Opposition.

When the National Police Commission was established, it was thought that the police would be able to carry out their duties and functions, free from political interference. But the police have been at the beck and call of ruling party politicians, who use them as a cat’s paw to pull political chestnuts out of the fire. Many top cops who did dirty political work for politicians have burnt their fingers, and some of them have even fled the country, but there’s a stooge born every minute; politicians are never short of cops ready to lick their boots.

The CID seems to measure the success of an investigation by the length of interrogation, and the number of trips a nervous suspect makes to the toilet while being grilled. It also specialises in questioning the innocent and letting criminals off the hook. There are many unsolved murders including some high-profile ones such as the assassination of The Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrametunge. But the so-called murder investigation unit of the CID is busy investigating a complaint made by a ruling party politician, who is out for former CAA DG’s scalp.

The selective efficiency of the CID is amazing. Interestingly, it has not yet questioned State Minister Lohan Ratwatte for allegedly holding a group of former Tigers at gunpoint inside a prison.

While the CID is busy harassing the intrepid whistleblower who exposed the Sathosa garlic racket thereby preventing a bunch of crooks from making huge profits at the expense of the public, the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) has succumbed to pressure from a powerful minister and halted an investigation into a fraud, which has cost the Treasury as much as USD 18 mn, as we reported yesterday. The main news item in yesterday’s issue of this newspaper gave all necessary information about the fraud and the stalled CCD probe, and the government must try to recover the money. Let the Opposition be urged to take up such issues instead of making noises and doing precious little.

If the CID had cared to devote enough time and energy to its investigations into the caches of explosives detected at a National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) training facility at Wanathavilluwa, in early 2019, the Easter Sunday carnage could have been prevented and about 275 precious lives saved. Ironically, it has been interrogating/harassing a popular Catholic priest over a statement he has made about the Easter Sunday attacks, which the police failed to prevent. The Presidential Commission of Inquiry, which probed the 2019 terror attacks on churches and hotels, has revealed in Chapter 20 of its report the many failures on the part of the police. Had the CID conducted a proper investigation and traced those who killed two policemen in Vavunativu in November 2018, the NTJ terrorists, who committed the crime, could have been neutralised and thereby prevented from bombing civilian targets. Instead, it blamed some former LTTE cadres for the execution-style killings, and even arrested an ex-Tiger. Now, it has chosen to bark up the wrong tree at the behest of a politician, as regards the Sathosa garlic scam which could not have been carried out without the blessings of government politicians.