Politicos’ aversion to STF

Editorial-August 1, 2013

People of Deraniyagala who have, at long last, plucked up the courage to rise against the criminal gangs led by some UPFA politicians following the brutal killing of a popular estate superintendent, are demanding that the Special Task Force (STF) be deployed in their area for their protection. They say they have lost their faith in the regular police. It may be wrong to tar all police personnel with the same brush as there are honest, efficient officers and men among them, but there has emerged irrefutable evidence that the criminals who terrorised Deraniyagala worked hand in glove with the police in the area.

Criminals enjoying government patronage often get away with their illegal operations because the ordinary people are too scared to give evidence against them. The situation has become so bad that a case where Tangalle PS Chairman (UPFA) Sampath Vidanapathirana and seven others have been charged with the murder of a British national and the rape of the victim’s girlfriend in 2011 has had to be shifted to Colombo from Tangalle in view of threats to witnesses, as the CID has told courts. This is a damning indictment of the government and the police, to say the least. In Puttalam, a female teacher, harassed by a provincial councillor who made her kneel down in full view of her colleagues and students, has complained to courts that she has come under threat. In Deraniyagala, too, criminals are trying to frighten witnesses into silence.

All government bigwigs who boast of having defeated terrorism and their khaki-clad lackeys must hang their heads in shame! This country has become a paradise for the pro-government criminals.

Meanwhile, Ministers John Seneviratne and Vasudeva Nanayakkara have taken umbrage at the deployment of the Special Task Force (STF) to prevent illegal gem mining in their home district, Ratnapura. They want that task assigned to the ordinary police in the area. We thought Minister Nanayakkara was a sensible politician!

True, an illegal gem miner fell into a pit and drowned while fleeing during a recent raid. How could the STF be blamed for that incident? The death of any man diminishes us, but the victim would not have met his fate if he had not violated the law. Illegal gem mining is a nuisance to the public and poses a serious threat to the environment. Ratnapura has come to be dubbed Kota Uda Nagaraya or the town on wooden props. For, underneath it lies a labyrinth of haphazardly excavated gem mining tunnels supported by logs and planks.

A few years ago we reported that the children of a school in Godakewela, also in the Ratnapura District, ran helter-skelter, scared out of their wits, as they felt the earth rumbling and shaking under their feet. Everybody panicked, thinking it was an earthquake. But, later, they realised that the sound emanated from a tunnel gem miners were digging under the school playground!

Abandoned deep gem pits brimming with water are ideal breeding places of mosquitoes and pose a danger to people and animals alike. Ratnapura teems with such death traps. Haphazard gem mining also causes severe erosion of river banks and triggers earth slips. Do the government politicians want these disastrous consequences overlooked because the culprits are their supporters?

The regular police are malleable and powerful politicians keep them under their thumb. That was why it took so long for the police to put an end to the Kahawatte killings. The psychopathic serial killers would still have been at large but for the special police teams dispatched from Colombo to take over investigations. Among those taken into custody are drug dealers with links to the UPFA. The STF is capable of acting independently to a considerable extent. Hence, the government politicians’ antipathy towards the police commandos deployed in their areas for special operations!

Only those on the wrong side of the law have reason to fear the STF. The law-abiding citizens have no problems with the elite paramilitary outfit which is the most potent weapon the police have at their disposal to combat organised crime. If politicians care to rein in their goons responsible for murders, robberies, extortion, narcotics trade, illegal gem mining, brewing hooch, running shebeens, land grabbing, illicit felling etc, then there will be absolutely no need for the police commandos to be deployed in their areas.

Is it that Ministers Seneviratne and Nanayakkara want the unauthorised gem miners handled with kid gloves by the lily-livered ordinary police so that the culprits could carry out their illegal operations unhindered?

Let the government be urged to retain the police commandos deployed in Ratnapura, where they are doing an excellent job, and deploy them in sufficient numbers in Deraniyagala in Kegalle to ensure the protection of the vulnerable public.