The assassination of a Vice-Chancellor

It was on March 8, 1991 when a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Colombo, Prof. Stanley Wijesundera, was assassinated by a JVP hit-man at the end of the Beeshanaya period. At this time JVP activities had made all universities in Sri Lanka dysfunctional although they were nominally kept open.

I went to the University of Colombo where I was Registrar every day and attended to whatever had to be done though there was hardly anything to do. Most of the staff kept away from work due to fear. Whenever I did not go to office, one of the activists would ring home and ask when I would come to office as much had to be done.

When when I got to office there was nothing to do. But the activists would come to me and demand a vehicle. I told them one vehicle had already been given and I cannot give another. They would say that they would take one anyway. I replied that this is left to them. They never took another vehicle on their own.

During the Beeshanaya several university people were killed, including the then Vice-Chancellor of the University of Moratuwa, Prof. Patuwatuvithana who was shot dead point blank while seated in his office.

Just after the rebellion was quelled and all leaders in the universities were either killed or arrested, peace was restored and the universities returned to normal. The only rebel leader from the Colombo University who was not killed was nabbed at the airport as he tried to leave the country. He was imprisoned in the Boossa camp where he studied for his final examination in law and later practiced as an attorney.

In early 1991, Prof. Stanley Wijesundera had reached the age of retirement and relinquished duties as Vice-Chancellor of the Colombo University. Prof. GL Peiris was appointed to succeed him. After retirement Prof. Wijesundera wanted to continue his research and he decided to remain in College House instead of going to the Faculty of Medicine. He was allocated a room upstairs in College House jutting out of the building on the Queen’s Road side. This happened to be the room I occupied when I first came to College House as Senior Assistant Registrar on transfer from Senate House in 1979.

Every morning Prof. Wijesundera used to walk through my office to get to his room and he always made a remark like complimenting me on my tie. On March 8, 1991 too he had walked across my room and along the verandah to his room. I was downstairs chairing a selection committee meeting to select a telephone operator with two woman Assistant Registrars as the other members of the committee.

A little while after the meeting began I heard three rapid shots, and asked the two ladies whether they heard it too. They had not. I said that the sound came from within College House. A while later, the Vice-Chancellor’s peon, Meetin Singho, came down and whispered in my ear that the Vice-Chancellor had been shot. With a questioning look on my face, I was wondering why anyone would kill a Vice-Chancellor who had just assumed duties. Meetin Singho realized this and corrected himself to say it was the former Vice-Chancellor who had been shot.

I asked Meetin Singho to alert the university vehicle to stand by to take Prof. Wijesundera to hospital. As I was rushing upstairs to see what had happened, Prof. Karunanayake coming down told me that Prof. Wijesundera was no more.

I went to the scene of the crime and saw the inanimate figure of Prof. Wijesundera lying in the corridor in front of his room with his head against the wall and blood running from the gunshot injury on his forehead. Three shots had been fired; the first had hit the wall, the second a cupboard and the fatal third shot hit the professor’s forehead.

I immediately went into my office and telephoned the IGP, Mr. Ernest Perera and the Defence Secretary General Sepala Attygalle, who was a relative of both the professor and me. Both of them rushed to the scene and instructed the police on what to do.

This heinous crime may not have occurred if I was in my office where other people were normally present at the time. A crowd there would have been a deterrent to the killing. As it happened, the killer was able to walk without fear along an empty corridor to Prof. Wijesundera .

A Kollupitiya Police Inspector came the following day to record statements from those in College House at the time including mine. The killer was not apprehend for a while. Later the Inspector came to my office and told me of his arrest getting off a bus at Havelock Town. He had confessed to the murder and described how the crime was committed.

The gunman had walked into College House through the main gate like a normal undergraduate, climbed the stairway without hesitation, walked along the corridor to the victim and fired the shots with the pistol he carried. Then he walked down the stairs and instead of using the main gate, escaped through a gap in the fence onto Queen’s Road where a motorcycle with the engine running was waiting to whisk him away.

The Police Inspector came again and told me that the assassin had indicated that he had escaped through a gap in the fence. The Inspector had checked the fence and said he found no gap but I confirmed its existence. I got the Works Engineer to close it thereafter.

Some time later when our private car with my wife at the wheel met with an accident on the Lauries Road-Duplication Road junction with a lorry loaded with asbestos roofing sheets, both vehicles were taken to the Bambalapitiya Police Station for inquiry. After chatting awhile, the Officer in Charge, Mr. Angunawela, opened his drawer and pulled out a picture of a bearded youth and asked me whether I recognized the person.

When I answered in the negative, he said that it was Prof. Wijesundera’s killer. I am not sure as to what happened to him as there was no case against him in the courts as far as I know.

HM NISSANKA WARAKAULLE