A State that fails its children

Once again a death of a child has shocked the whole country as the body of a girl who went missing in the Atulugama area in Bandaragama was found near a paddy field a day later. Nine-year-old Fatima Ayesha, a fourth-grade student of Al Gazzaly School, had gone missing on 27 May after visiting a shop about 200 metres from her house. Even though the circumstances of her death are still not clear, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in a message via Twitter pledged to “expedite swift action & justice to her family for this vicious crime.”

It is hoped that the wheels of justice do turn swiftly and those responsible for the death of this young child be held accountable. However, despite reassuring words of the president, the record of the Sri Lankan State on accountability for heinous crimes against children is rather dismal, to say the least.

One of the first actions of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa since assuming the highest office in the land was to pardon Sergeant Sunil Ratnayake who had been found guilty for the massacre of eight civilians including children. The verdict passed by the High Court in 2015 was held by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. Despite this rare conviction for a crime against Tamil civilians, President Rajapaksa pardoned this killer who belonged to the Gajaba Regiment of the Army. The Sri Lankan Army is yet to respond to the killing of Balachandran Prabhakaran, the 12-year-old child of the LTTE leader. Despite photographic evidence to suggest that the child was captured alive and executed later there has not been any attempt to address the war crime.

A rare occasion in which child killers were held accountable and brought to justice was the case of the abduction, gang rape and killing of Sivaloganathan Vidya of Pungudutivu. She was abducted on her way to school on 13 May 2015. A Trial-at-Bar of the Jaffna High Court on 27 September 2017 convicted seven accused, including Mahalingam Shashikumar, alias Swiss Kumar, and sentenced them to death for the murder. The police officer who cracked this case and brought the accused to justice was Inspector Nishantha Silva. Today he is in exile in fear of his life after investigating other high profile crimes including the murder of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge in which then defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa is accused of involvement. 

Silva’s former boss and the man dubbed ‘Sherlock Holmes of Sri Lanka’, SSP Shani Abeysekara was also hounded by the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration. The former CID Director was incarcerated for 11 months accusing him of fabricating evidence in a case concerning a kidnapping and murder ring carried out by a former high ranking policeman. The Court of Appeal ordering the granting of bail to Shani Abeysekara thrashed the accusations calling them politically motivated and fabricated.

The same week of the recent tragedy, it was reported that the Director of the CID had been transferred, marking the sixth time the head of the premier investigative branch of the Police had been changed since President Rajapaksa took office. The politicisation of this elite investigative institution will severely compromise its role in investigating heinous crimes. 

This then is the plight of the Police and the judicial system that is now expected to deliver justice for little Fatima Ayesha. The capacity of the police to investigate this crime and the independence and efficiency of the judiciary to deliver justice for such a crime have all been compromised by the current administration. As we all hope to learn the truth regarding the circumstances of the death of Fatima, it is worth recalling the many more innocent lives that had been denied justice by the Sri Lankan State and the damage done to its institutions by the likes of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa which have rendered them incapable of delivering justice.