Last week, for the first time following the Election of the present Government, the public questioned the Government’s ability to establish the rule of law as it had promised and whether the country has returned to the era where suspects were nonchalantly killed when they allegedly tried to attack Police officers when taken to show hidden weapons.

These concerns relate to the deaths of the two assailants in the case of the recent murder in Kotahena, where a man was shot to death. The two suspects, who, according to the videos circulated on social media platforms, were manhandled and who had their hands and legs tied, died within hours after the arrest. The Police’s explanation was familiar – they claimed that the suspects tried to attack the Police when the Police took them to a certain location to find hidden weapons and that the clash between the suspects and police at the site led to the suspects’ deaths. Both suspects were shot dead. 

However, going by the public backlash, it is apparent that the public is not ready to accept the Police’s standard, stale explanation given in most cases of custodial deaths about finding hidden weapons. Under the present National People’s Power (NPP) Government, which promised to end extrajudicial executions, the public expects more honest, transparent, and lawful action.

While the Government has an undeniable duty in this regard, there are other similarly serious concerns relating to this phenomenon. Despite the authorities’ official explanation, many members of the public seem to believe that these deaths, which the Police say are a result of Police officers trying to defend themselves, are extrajudicial executions, and the biggest concern is that many people believe that these deaths, even if they were extrajudicial executions, are acceptable, simply because the deceased are organised criminal figures. That in itself is a serious threat to a country aiming to establish the rule of law, as everyone is entitled to a fair trial regardless of the nature of their actions.

This new incident of custodial deaths, which human rights activists and law-abiding members of the public condemn, is taking place in a context where several directives and instructions have been issued over the years to the relevant authorities, especially the Police, to prevent such from happening. When the authorities, including the Acting Inspector General of Police Priyantha Weerasooriya, called a press briefing following the deaths of the Kotahena gunmen, journalists questioned whether the Police adhered to the relevant guidelines about taking suspects outside Police stations for investigations, to which no proper answer was given. At the same time, journalists questioned how the recurrence of such killings, which indicate that suspects are not safe even in custody, may impact Sri Lanka’s attempts to get international bodies’ assistance to bring back organised crime figures operating from abroad. This discussion points to the indirect yet significant adverse impacts of tolerating extrajudicial killings as mere acts of self-defence.

We cannot also forget the fact that Sri Lanka’s human rights situation is not at an optimal state. While legacy allegations from the conflict period linger even one and a half decades after the end of the conflict, allegations of human rights violations, including custodial torture and deaths, are a topic of discussion at both the international and domestic levels. These acts have come under fire from international human rights monitors such as Amnesty International as well as similar locally-established civil society groups, and these types of suspects’ deaths while attempting to recover hidden weapons have been criticised based on a number of suspicious facts. In the case of the Kotahena gunmen’s case, a brother of one of the deceased interviewed by a local media outlet raised a question as to how the suspects were caught, taken to a Police station, interrogated, taken to a location to find weapons, and died within a matter of mere hours. In a context where Sri Lanka has a history of suspects being killed in a similar manner despite requests for increased protection due to threats against suspects’ lives, such as in the case of the organised crime figure known as ‘Kosgoda Tharaka’ in 2021, such suspicions are justifiable. 

At the end of the day, regardless of who interprets custodial deaths as justifiable, based merely on the nature of a suspect’s track record, it is not only not acceptable but also constitutes a major threat to the rule of law. The key fact that has been ignored by the common man who commends the death of an alleged criminal is that, if a criminal can be punished outside of a court of law, the same can happen to any other person. In this context, while taking stringent and transparent measures to ensure that Police officers do not violate the law, attempts should also be made to guide the public to see these acts for what they are. They should be taught that the trend of suspects dying at the hands of the Police while allegedly trying to show hidden weapons is not very different from organised crime figures killing people in broad daylight, because in both cases, it is one or more individuals’ opinion that decides the fate of another human being and not the country’s law.

In the backdrop of the Kotahena incident, the Police said that 58 organised criminal groups and around 1,400 individuals affiliated with those gangs have been identified. Instead of repeating the same alleged mistake of allowing suspects to attack Police officers while trying to find hidden weapons, which almost always leads to the death of the suspects, the Police must at least now adhere to the directives and guidelines by the Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court on taking suspects outside of Police stations. The Government has a major responsibility in this regard, if it is serious about ending Government-backed crimes seen during the past few decades and in establishing the rule of law.