The triple murder of a father and his two children on Tuesday night and yesterday’s blatant assassination of an organised crime suspect next to the witness box of number five Magistrate’s Court in the Aluthkade Courts Complex, sent shockwaves amongst the citizenry. As in true Sri Lankan governance style, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men were available to close the stable gate, once the ‘lawyer’ had escaped, pardon the pun, as the assailant was disguised as one to gain entry to the Court. Sri Lankan authorities are masters of ‘post-incident’ theatrics and flooded the scene outside the Courts with Police and STF personnel, but failed to stop the suspect from fleeing. It is reported that the 34-year-old suspect, identified by Police as Mohamed Azman Sheriffdeen was later caught after an exhaustive manhunt in the Palaviya area in Puttalam by the Police Special Task Force (STF). Some observers were of the view that he was making a run to catch the ‘Palk Strait Express’ like many a gun-for-hire before him have done, to flee to neighbouring India. Like many ‘shooters’ in Sri Lanka, Azman is suspected to be a former member of the armed forces.

The once-vocal Deputy Minister of Public Security was left speechless in the face of a barrage of questions from journalists about the state of public security and national security when he visited the Court complex in the aftermath of the shooting. This Government, during the build-up to the election, showered the voters with many promises, one of which was that within one or two months of them coming to power, the law and order situation in Sri Lanka would drastically be changed and the public would be free and safe. Such lofty promises have fallen flat on its face with these two key incidents. This Government also promised that it would bring transparency and accountability. Will the public see any accountability for these crimes, other than the prosecution of the suspects linked to the murders? Will anyone in charge of security at the court's premises, jailors who transported a high-risk/high-threat suspect be taken to task for inadequate protection and a clear breach of security? Will senior police officers in charge of such matters be taken to task? Or will anyone at the Ministry of Public Security be penalised for these shortcomings? Time will tell how much ‘accountability’ this Government will seek from their own and the State apparatus when a major security failure happens on their watch.

Both of these tragic shooting incidents point to a long-standing culture of violence and systemic weaknesses of the law enforcement and judicial system in Sri Lanka. The fact that lawyers have long been allowed to enter courts without proper security screening is indicative of them also being a ‘privileged class’ amongst the citizenry. The legal fraternity may not like to admit such but the reality, which was exploited by lawbreakers yesterday to penetrate court premises, points to such privileges. After the fact, Police last afternoon began to ‘check’ lawyers who enter court premises. If one were to go by the manner lawyers are ‘screened’ and allowed to fly past the checkpoints if they are of a ‘senior vintage’ at the Supreme Court, these new measures may with the passing of time, trickle down to a nod of acknowledgement between the security officers and the ‘senior lawyers’ and their entourage of legal aids who fly in and out with little vetting. Let us hope that lessons will be learned.

These two incidents, and several other gun violence-related incidents over the last three months, and indeed over the last two years, are valid enough reasons for the Sri Lanka law enforcement and judicial apparatus to take a serious look at themselves and review their culture and procedures. Of course, some one, perhaps the Ministry of Justice will appoint a committee, and a long drawn-out process may bring some recommendations, like many committees have in the past, only for a few to be enforced. But how many more will pay with their lives and suffer injustice in the meanwhile? The time to act decisively and constructively is now.