Daily Mirror Online

A cop in a million
It is indeed a shame that Interior Minister John Amaratunga, instead of instituting a high-powered public probe to investigate the serious allegations made against the police by its outspoken Deputy Inspector General H.M.G.B. Kotakadeniya, blindly attempted to whitewash the force in a media interview.

To add insult to injury, Mr. Amaratunga argued that the only reason why Mr Kotakadeniya is still in service was that the previous Government had given him an extension of one year.

Therefore, naturally emboldened by the remarks of the political boss, IGP Lakdasa Kodituwakku and virtually the entire police top brass, like a pack of wolves, lambasted the whistle blower at a time the hounded lone man was out of the country.

Surely Mr IGP, no one said you were on the payroll of the underworld or that the rot in the Department started with you. And you and all of us should be glad that there are people of the calibre of Mr Kotakadeniya who have the courage to speak the truth. We are certain that heart of hearts you must be thanking him for that he has done.

All that Mr Kotakadeniya has been saying, not just today, but even during the previous regime, is an open secret. Even schoolchildren in this country know most policemen are utterly corrupt.

As a senior DIG, Mr Kodituwakku you too did a fantastic job in heading the Central Anti-Vice Strike Force. When area police stations were turning a blind eye to vice in their areas it was only your force that raided vice dens and kept them in check. But with your becoming the IGP, for some mysterious reason, possibly due to political interference all those operations came to a halt. Similarly, your son, ASP Ranmal Kodituwakku, is known as an officer who does his duty without fear or favour. But like Mr Kotakadeniya, we know, often he too is helpless, as the rot is very deeply entrenched in the service from top to bottom.

Corruption in the Sri Lankan police force, no doubt, had been going on for a long time as with police the world over. But with the introduction of the so-called open economy where the rulers themselves in general have come to accept the pursuit of wealth by hook or by crook as the done thing, the problem in the police has definitely got out of control. Take just two recent incidents. First, when a team of policemen from the Kohuwala police went to arrest a dope pusher at Kirullapone, the cops there arrested the former, even after they clearly identified themselves, and allowed the known drug dealer to escape. To add insult to injury, the arrested policemen were only released on bail.

The dumbstruck DIG in charge of the division could only mumble that he could not take any action as the Kohuwala policemen had gone on the raid without informing the area police. Surely, if the area police is often on the payroll of neighbourhood vice, to inform them would be like blowing a police whistle to warn of the raid. Similarly, when the Chilaw police division vice squad arrested some bootleggers and brought them to the Wennappuwa police station, they were released by senior officers of the station after they scolded those who arrested them in filth.

Of course, periodically there are few much-publicised raids often to hoodwink the media and the public at large and also to fill police record books. In other instances, they are made in order to obtain payoffs to halt future raids.

Mr IGP, what allegedly happened at Elpitiya involving a senior officer is only the tip of the iceberg. Ask ordinary people. It is the case almost everywhere.

If not all of the above, Mr Interior Minister do you not see something really rotten in the entire law enforcement setup, when you yourself recently stated that more than half of those filling up our crowded jails were those who had been convicted for drug offences. And nearly all of them are small fry.

More than the war or road deaths, heroin is a canker that is destroying not only individuals, families and entire neighbourhoods, but increasingly our whole social fabric, as the increasingly menacing crimes that are committed are all linked to either addicts or the underworld trade in narcotics.