Public Security Minister asks SLPP to hold disciplinary inquiry against MP Jagath Kumara

By Norman Palihawadane

Public Security Minister Rear Admiral (retd) Sarath Weerasekera yesterday said that he had asked the SLPP top brass to conduct a disciplinary inquiry against SLPP MP Jagath Kumara.

Minister Weerasekera told The Island that MP Jagath Kumara had resigned from the post of Padukka Regional Co-ordinating Committee Chairman for not appointing an OIC of his choice to the Padukka Police Station. “This I cannot do because I am against politicising the police service,” the Minister said.

 The Minister said that the MP had contacted him soon after the OIC of Padukka Police was transferred out and requested to cancel that transfer order. “The OIC was transferred because there are several charges against him including the one that he kept two females in the station without a woman police officer. He had been removed on the recommendations from the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security and the IGP, the minister said. MP Jagath Kumara had made requests both verbally and in writing to appoint an OIC known to him. “It is nothing but politicising the police service and that is the last thing I want to see as the Minister of Public Security. Thereafter the MP held a press conference criticising me therefore I asked the SLPP leaders to conduct a disciplinary inquiry against the MP,” the Minister said.

MP Jagath Kumara addressing the media in Colombo yesterday said that he was not afraid of Weerasekera’s call for a disciplinary inquiry.

MP Kumara urged the minister not to push him into a situation where he would have to come out with what he did not want to disclose.

MP Kumara resigned from his post as Padukka Regional Co-ordinating Committee Chairman in protest against the appointment of a new OIC to the Padukka Police Station.

MP Kumara said that the appointment was politically motivated, and that the new OIC was a close associate of Energy Minister Gamini Lokuge.

MP Kumara said that he had his loyalty to the government, stating that when former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had lost the presidential election, it was he who had organised a meeting in Tangalle fearlessly.

“When I organized that meeting, where were all these Ministers? Were they hiding in fear that their corruption cases would be taken up again?” he asked.

MP Kumara said that it was those who did not know the history of the SLPP made baseless allegations against him and called for disciplinary action against him.

 The MP said that the teacher-principal protests would not have gone so far if some of the protesters had not been arrested and packed off to quarantine centres in faraway places.