What an arrest!

Tuesday 20th October, 2020

The police finally arrested All Ceylon Makkal Congress Leader and SJB MP Rishad Bathiudeen, wanted for allegedly misusing public funds. He was remanded. Having incurred much public opprobrium owing to the release of his young brother, Riyaj, who had been arrested, detained and interrogated on his alleged links to the Easter Sunday bombers, the government by allowing Bathiudeen to be arrested only made a virtue of necessity. It had the police refrain from making several arrests previously in defiance of the Attorney General’s orders. The police did not go all out to arrest Negombo Prison Chief Anuruddha Sampayo, Kurunegala Mayor Thushara Sanjeewa, former Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, Perpetual Treasuries owner Arjun Aloysius and several others. But for public resentment which caused some government MPs to call for action against the Bathiudeen brothers, the police would have thumbed their noses at the AG, again.

The manner in which the CID arrested Bathiudeen reminds us of the so-called ‘slow bicycle race’ at Avurudu sports festivals. In this contest, the slowest rider is adjudged the winner. The CID managed to make the slowest possible progress in its operation to arrest Bathiudeen until the eve of a crucial parliamentary debate on the 20th Amendment (20A). Bathiudeen can attend Parliament and vote while on remand.

The CID has also taken into custody several persons who harboured Bathiudeen, and legal action is to be instituted against them for that offence, we are told. There was no arrest warrant on Bathiudeen, but the police have rightly dealt with those who helped him go into hiding. In May, the Fort Magistrate’s Court issued an order for the immediate arrest of Karunanayake, Aloysius and others, but the CID did not make any serious effort to arrest them until they had their arrest warrants stayed by the Court of Appeal. Have the police identified those who harboured those suspects in spite of the Magistrate’s Court order? When they found it difficult to arrest the driver of former Minister Champika Ranawaka over a hit-and-run accident, they brought his wife and little daughter to Colombo, to pressure him to surrender, according to the suspect’s lawyers. When ordinary people happen to be on the wrong side of the law, the police act like Rambo, but when the wanted suspects are backed by powerful politicians they become mere ‘cardboard Sandows’.

What one gathers from the AG’s statements is that during the 2019 presidential election, the then Minister Bathiudeen and two of his officials—Project Director of the Ministry of Resettlement, Y. Samsudeen, and Project Accountant, A. Manoranjan—allegedly misappropriated public funds amounting to Rs. 9.5 million by misusing 222 state-owned buses to transport displaced voters from Puttalam to Mannar. Bathiudeen has allegedly committed offences under the Presidential Elections Act and the Offences against Public Property Act, the violation of which is a non-bailable offence.

Bathiudeen brought down the hurriedly formed Sirisena-Rajapaksa government, in 2018, by refusing to vote with it in Parliament. That administration crashed, unable to raise a simple majority in the House. This time around, Bathiudeen can give the present regime the kiss of death by voting for the 20A. If he and his four MPs vote for 20A, as expected, those who claim that he and the government have struck a secret deal will be vindicated. The only way the government can avert such a situation is to engineer the crossover of some other Opposition MPs so that it does not have to depend on Bathiudeen. It has reportedly succeeded in its endeavour, and how many MPs it has bought off can be seen when 20A is put to the vote on Thursday. It is only natural that the SJB is trying to prevent Parliament from convening today.

Meanwhile, it should be found out whether Bathiudeen helped the displaced voters exercise their franchise in a similar manner when he was a minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government. Did he use the state-owned buses to transport them from Puttalam to Mannar? If so, why was no action taken against him, then?