SRI LANKA: Chilaw Police Illegally Arrested, Tortured an Innocent Man

Human Rights Ambassador William Nicholas Gomes contacts Sri Lanka's Inspector General of Police over arbitrary arrest and torture.

N K Illangakoon - Inspector General of Police, photo: Sri Lanka Guardian

(HONG KONG) - Try to imagine that you are taking a break from your work day, and a police officer calls you over for no reason, and begins asking questions about an illegal liquor smuggling operation that you know nothing about.

When you tell the police that you know nothing about this illegal operation or any other like it, they begin to beat you. A second police officer, initially assumed to be a trusted public official, paid by tax dollars of hard working people, takes a black cable out of his jeep and begins beating you with it.

After being tortured by these police for a crime you didn't commit, you suddenly realize that the sadistic officers are just getting started. Next, they take you to a remote place, and order you to strip naked. Then, the same officer takes that black cable out again and begins beating you without mercy, all on government business.

Welcome to Sri Lanka, where murder and rape are some of the most flagrant and common of occurrences; a place of lawlessness, where police and military beat and torture and sometimes kill, with seeming impunity.

The example above is more than an example, it is the recent experience of a young father named Aruna who was brutally victimized by police, so badly in fact, that he would require four days of hospitalization before any type of recovery.

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May 14,2012 Mr. N K Illangakoon Inspector General of Police New Secretariat Colombo 1 SRI LANKA Fax: +94 11 2 440440 / 327877 E-mail: igp@police.lk Dear Inspector General of Police, I am William Nicholas Gomes, Human Rights Ambassador for Salem News.com . I am writing to express my serious concern over the case of Mr. N A Aruna Roshantha (42) of Mugunuwatawana, Chilaw in the district of Puttalam. Aruna was illegally arrested, detained, brutally tortured and laid with fabricated charges. Aruna is married, the father of one child and a labourer in a brick kiln in the area. On 24 March 2012, at lunch time as usual he went home for his meal and on his way he was having a chat with people in a neighbouring house as next work shift started at 2.30pm. He was about to chew some betel and Erica nuts with the people whom he had known for a long time. It was then that he noted a uniformed police officer approaching him who asked him to come to the jeep parked nearby. When Aruna followed the officer he saw the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) of the Chilaw Police Station Manoj Ranagala, getting down from the jeep and coming to him. Then the OIC questioned Aruna whether he knows a person called Sebastian of the Watawana area and any place where people were brewing illicit liquor. Aruna responded that he did not know of any such place or person. Then, suddenly OIC Manoj started beating Aruna and threatened him all the while repeatedly asking the same questions. Despite his shock and pain Aruna continued to deny any knowledge of what the OIC was asking him. Then OIC Manoj brought a black cable from the police-jeep with which he started to beat Aruna. OIC Manoj ordered Aruna to get into the jeep parked close to the house. Even though Aruna explained that he had to report for the next shift his plea was ignored and he was mercilessly pushed into the vehicle. Aruna noted that the vehicle stopped at an isolated place. Then, OIC Manoj ordered Aruna to remove all his clothes and started to beat Aruna again with the same black cable. Aruna appealed to the OIC not to beat him and told the officers present that he had never committed any crime and he did not know any answers to their questioned. Later, OIC Manoj stopped a lorry and placed Aruna inside it. Aruna was publicly exhibited in the same village as a suspect and at 8pm he was brought to the Chilaw Police Station. At the police station officers on duty brought 5 empty bottles to Aruna and him to put finger prints on the bottles. Aruna refused to touch the bottles and pleaded the officers not to put him into any further trouble but the officers threatened him with further torture. When Aruna refused to touch the bottles the officers forcefully pushed his fingers on them. Then at 12 pm police officers told Aruna that he could go home. In the early morning of 27 March Aruna was admitted to the Chilaw Base Hospital for treatments as his condition worsened. He was treated at the hospital for a period of four days and discharged on 30 March. While he was in the hospital an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) came to him and recorded a statement on the assault by the police officers. Aruna states that still he does not know of any success on this inquiry. Aruna and his family members state that his basic human rights enshrined in the Constitution of Sri Lanka were violated. They further state that the law enforcement agency of the country has not initiated any efficient, independent and credible inquiry unto the violation of his rights. He states that justice has been denied and perpetrators are not being punished. I request your urgent intervention to ensure that the authorities of Sri Lanka to instigate an immediate investigation into the allegations of illegal arrest, illegal detention, torture by the police perpetrators, and the prosecution of those to be proven responsible under the criminal law of the country for misusing powers of state officers and for wrongful prosecution. The officers involved must also be subjected to internal investigations for the breach of the departmental orders as issued by the police department. Yours sincerely, William Nicholas Gomes Human Rights Ambassador Salem News.com www.williamgomes.org

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Salem-News.com Human Rights Ambassador William Nicholas Gomes is a Bangladeshi journalist, human rights activist and author was born on 25 December, 1985 in Dhaka. As an investigative journalist he wrote widely for leading European and Asian media outlets.

He is also active in advocating for free and independent media and journalists’ rights, and is part of the free media movement, Global Independent Media Center – an activist media network for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate telling of the truth. He worked for Italian news agency Asianews.it from year 2009 to 2011, on that time he was accredited as a free lance journalist by the press information department of Bangladesh. During this time he has reported a notable numbers of reports for the news agency which were translated into Chinese and Italian and quoted by notable number of new outlets all over the world.He, ideologically, identifies himself deeply attached with anarchism. His political views are often characterized as “leftist” or “left-wing,” and he has described himself as an individualist anarchist.