SDIG warns desperados against threatening moves as cops are ordered to shoot

Senior DIG Deshabandu Tennakoon told Derana Aluth Parlimenthuwa programme, on Wednesday, that police had been ordered to open fire if those in their custody made sudden threatening moves.

Tennakoon said that the lives of law enforcement officers could not be jeopardised under any circumstances.

The SDIG strongly defended a spate of killings while in police custody. Responding to a Derana query, Tennnakoon said that the police had identified 27 underworld hit men. “Most of them had been with the military and posed quite a threat to society. We are dealing with dangerous men. Therefore, police will take required precautions when dealing with them.”

The SDIG asked the underworld figures to surrender or face the consequences. Prison’s Chief Thushara Upuldeniya said that unprecedented measures had been taken to isolate those convicts and remand prisoners who ran clandestine operations outside the prisons. As part of a security strategy, the prisons authorities had interdicted several of their errant officers, transferred some and taken a couple of others into custody, he said. Those who had used cell phones were now held in special sections subjected to electronic jamming and, therefore, they could not get in touch with the outside world, he added. (SF)