Monday Nov 25, 2024
Monday Nov 25, 2024
Tuesday, 16 November 2021 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Police will not let any culprit of the Easter Sunday attacks go scot-free and it is working very hard to do justice to those who were killed and injured, numbering over 500 innocent devotees, Public Security Ministry Secretary Maj. Gen. Jagath Alwis said.
“After this Government came into power, we arrested 165 people and indicted 48 people suspected to have been involved in this massacre,” he said, adding that it was still an ongoing investigation process to nab all who were involved in the deadly bombing.
Vehemently denying the accusation of delaying investigations to bring the culprits to book, Maj. Gen. Alwis said the Police was engaged in an evidence-based investigation. “Just because somebody claims that a person is involved in these deadly Easter Sunday bombings, the Police cannot take the person into custody or make him a culprit as we have to do our investigations under an accepted legal framework. We have to prove it,” he stressed.
In an exclusive interview with Daily FT, the Ministry Secretary speaking on a wide range of issues related to the Police said it was unfortunate to see people with vested interests teaming up with clergy to create a different picture to mislead the public.
“I earnestly request the educated and reputed religious leaders not to look at this as a political game and not to create doubts about this process among the public,” Maj. Gen. Alwis said, while inviting anyone, including the clergy, to provide the Police more information and to work together to bring more culprits to book. Excerpts of the interview:
By Shanika Sriyananda
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Public Security Ministry Secretary |
Q: Why is the Department of Police which was under the purview of the Defence Ministry now a separate ministry?
This is mainly because President Gotabaya Rajapaksa wanted to transform the Police from a force to service to increase its engagement with the public. He wanted to build a society-oriented Police service where the people would feel the presence of the Police around the country. According to this concept, the Police must be within society to help people in every sphere of their lives and also they should be freely available for the people to discuss their matters.
Under President Rajapaksa’s vision, the State Ministry of Public Security was established to look at community Police areas to have at least two Policemen who will be directly coordinating with people in 14,022 Grama Seva Niladari areas. They will be advising people on security matters in their respective areas, assisting to get Police reports if necessary, getting access to Police stations in the area and solving day-to-day issues of the people if necessary. They will be the first contacts when it comes to matters related to the Police. We want the Police to get much closer to the hearts and minds of the people by making them a community-oriented service.
Q: The President has appointed a Task Force (TF) to build a secure country and a disciplined, virtuous and lawful society. What is the progress of this now?
This is headed by the Defence Secretary and I am also a part of this TF. We have achieved a lot and improved in some areas which need greater coordination in busting crimes.
This is one area where the Defence Ministry and Police work together very closely to create a peaceful atmosphere in the country. Take narcotics, for example. They mainly come from the sea and the Police shares information with the Sri Lanka Navy to apprehend smugglers, then the questioning and investigations are carried out by the Police.
All intelligence services are carrying out anti-narcotic operations within the country but the Police takes the lead as the law enforcement in the respective areas is done by the Police. The Police is always geared to maintain law and order in the country.
Q: Despite taking rapid action to bust crimes, it still seems like the crime rate has shown an upward trend. Why?
There are certain areas that we have to work on seriously. If you really look at the present situation, a lot of people are going through economic hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drug addicts are suffering a lot as prices have skyrocketed due to the short supply of drugs as we have taken thousands of kilos of drugs into our custody and blocked most of their supply chains via sea routes.
There are certain elements that continue to rob money or create problems in society to earn a living. But when compared to the statistics there is a reduction in the crime rate and taking ransom.
Due to the efficiency of Police investigators, many of the culprits of the recent crimes have been brought to book. The Police were able to apprehend the culprits of large-scale fraud like robbing an ATM card machine within 48 hours. The Police have also taken in the culprits, including hired killers of a Grama Sevaka due to a dispute, within two days.
We are progressing professionally to maintain law and order to have a peaceful country under the directives of the President.
Q: What is the progress of controlling the underworld which is mostly related to drug mafia and contact killings?
We have busted the underworld and drug mafia networks significantly. Earlier, the street value of a gram of heroin was Rs. 8,000 but today it has gone up by five- to six-fold due to the short supply of narcotics due to our frequent raids. This is a continuous challenge for law enforcement authorities mainly because there are about 100,000 drug addicts in the country. Various kinds of drugs infiltrate the country mainly through the sea. Therefore, in our strategy we mainly look into the supply and distribution within the country and how to handle drug addicts.
We are closely working with international agencies, intelligence agencies and the Sri Lanka Navy to shut the flow of narcotics into the country. We have been very successful in this and we have taken over 1,000 kg of narcotics. The Indian authorities are very helpful in our anti-narcotic operations.
We have dismantled the narcotic network within the country. We are not only arresting the drug smugglers but are confiscating their assets.
Although the major drug smugglers are living overseas, we make them feel that we are behind them. Recently, the Police nabbed three luxury cars worth Rs. 150 million belonging to a drug smuggler as he couldn’t prove how he earns his assets. Now we are going for their assets, which are unclaimed for the source of purchasing.
The drug smugglers have enough wealth to finance or bribe law enforcement officials. Our intelligence agencies are very active on them and we have taken immediate actions against a few people in the Police service who were involved in the drug mafia.
Q: There are some allegations against some influential people for their involvement in drug smuggling. Then how do they escape this well-organised network to nab drug dealers?
We have not received any complaint against such influential people up to now. If we have information or complaints on them the Police will definitely take action against them with no difference.
We are getting lots of information from the public and they can lodge complaints about such people who have involvement in the drug mafia for us to investigate.
Q: Women and children are always vulnerable to crimes. What are the special features added to have a secured environment for them?
We have increased the capabilities of the officers in the Women’s and Children’s Desks at Police stations by giving due recognition to female Police officers. We have given promotions for them.
Our intention is to have a separate section at each Police station to handle issues related to women and children in a secure environment where only female Police officers will help them to lodge their complaints. We are improving the standards gradually.
I want to emphasise that the Police get involved in these cases at the later part of the cases and there are many agencies including the Child Protection Authority, child rights officers and parents who should work closely to prevent unfortunate incidents to protect them from vulnerability and educate children about the potential threats. They also need to have a protective system where all these entities work together.
Q: Some incidents were reported where children and women got harassed or abused by the police in the stations when they go to complain. Your comments?
The Inspector General of Police has clearly stated that there should be a female Police constable present all the time if any women or children are kept in protective custody. There were very few cases and we have already severely dealt with them.
Stationing female Police officers in Police stations and the directives given by the IGP will prevent such unfortunate incidents in the future.
Q: What is the intention of having more Police stations at the village level?
President Rajapaksa’s Saubagye Dekma clearly mentions the requirement of having more Police stations to minimise crimes to have a peaceful Sri Lanka.
We initially had 494 Police stations in the country. In certain areas, Police stations are given the responsibility of over 40 Grama Seva divisions, which is a huge area of coverage and couldn’t handle effectively as the population is also large. Apart from this, there are other important requirements including the crime rate in the respective area to be considered to open a police station.
Following the President’s directions, the Ministry did a study and found that we have to have additional 201 Police stations covering the entire country. We set up a two-year plan and we decided to open 97 Police stations this year but due to the COVID situation we could open only 78 Police stations and we hope to open the balance 19 this year and the rest next year.
Once all Police stations are opened we will have a sizeable Police area of responsibility and people will get their own Police station in their respective areas. Through this we expect the Police to be more close to the people and also for the Police to be alert and aware of the things that happen in their respective areas.
Mobility was a major problem for the Police but as an immediate remedy the President directed us to distribute 2,000 three-wheelers among Police stations. Then, the Japanese Government has donated 100 vehicles and 150 Yamaha 250 CC motorbikes for the Police recently. We will also get 750 jeeps under the Indian credit line facility soon.
With all these facilities given and increasing Police presence, the Police should be able to do a highly effective service and we want to see a significant reduction in crimes soon.
Q: Do you have plans to increase manpower in the Police?
Yes, we have already recruited 10,000 policemen this year but still manpower is an issue in the Police service. Over 3,000 get retire every year. President Rajapaksa has given a directive to increase the Police to 100,000 by next year.
Q: Recently several promotions, which dragged for years, were made. Do you think that they are given to the most deserving officers?
Yes. The President has instructed us to take measures to improve the standards of the Police personnel as we want to produce policemen who are content with their service. To achieve this, we have to look into their welfare from their uniforms to accommodation to promotions, which were due for years. For example, ASP promotions were dragging since 2014 and this made us promote officers to senior and junior levels.
We promoted 230 senior officers (ASPs), who are mainly responsible for the administration and operational sectors of the Police. A single officer had to handle a few areas of policing due to the dearth of senior officers.
We gave equal status to female officers in the Police service and promoted three DIGs and 13 ASPs. You will soon see female inspectors and chief inspectors handling Police stations.
Q: Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith is still not happy about the measures taken by the Government to bring the culprits of the Easter Sunday attacks to book. What is the progress so far and what is your response to him?
The Easter Sunday carnage is a very unfortunate series of bombings that took hundreds of innocent lives and injured over 500 people. We will not leave anyone go scot-free from this massacre and the Police is working very hard to do justice to those killed and injured. After this Government came into power, the Attorney General’s Department indicted 48 people who are suspected to have been involved in this massacre. We have also arrested 165 who have had links in this. We are still doing our investigations as it is an ongoing process to find culprits.
Q: But some accuse the Government of delaying prosecuting the culprits?
I vehemently deny this accusation. It took five to seven years to get the final conclusion of some of the past terror attacks like the attack on the Sri Dalada Maligawa and the Central Bank bombing. But we were able to achieve this progress within two years due to the professionalism, dedication and efficiency of the Police investigators.
People can have their own speculations but as a professional entity, the Police has to do an evidence-based investigation. Those speculations are not relevant to us as we are in an accepted professional investigation process.
Just because somebody claimed that a person is involved in these deadly Easter Sunday bombings, the Police cannot take the person into custody or make him a culprit as we have to do our investigations under an accepted legal framework. We have to prove it.
We are sad because some of the clergy do not understand what we have done so far. It is very unfortunate to see this has taken a political stance now and some people with ulterior motives have teamed up with clergy to create a different picture to mislead the public.
They can have their unfounded doubts but coming up with them in public is very unfortunate. We do not accept the respectable personalities trying to create doubts among the population. This will definitely affect the CID and intelligence personnel who have sweated throughout to get the culprits to the legal system. I earnestly request the educated reputed religious leaders not to look at this politically and not to create doubts about this investigation process.
We have been explaining to them what we have done professionally. If they still have doubts or complaints, they can lodge complaints to the CID again as we are ready to re-investigate them.
This trend will not support the recovery process of those who lost their loved ones and also who are still suffering from mental and physical scars. If anyone, including the clergy, has more information, give us information so we can work together to bring the culprits to book.
We are trying to see why some of the CID officials during the last regime ignored urgent actions while a series of related incidents happened prior to the Easter Sunday attacks. Why did they not take Zaharan into custody when it was clearly evident of his involvement?
The best example to prove that they were very poor in foreseeing these attacks was the killing of two policemen in Vavunathivu, which they endorsed as an attack by the ex-LTTE cadres. They were blind in their investigations and it helped Zaharan to do their final damage.
But we are working on it to see why they couldn’t take early action to apprehend them. There were several incidents, like finding explosives from Laktosewatta, attack on Lord Buddha statues and Rilwan Hasim, Zaharan’s brother, getting injured in his experiments with explosives, those investigators could have been alerted and taken Zaharan’s group into custody. But they couldn’t and didn’t do anything against those extremists.
The CID officials got the information about the impending series of bomb blasts but they didn’t act promptly to prevent the massive damage. Now we are investigating the lapses of the CID to avert the destruction and we will expose those who are responsible for this massacre during that regime and will take legal action against them as well.
Q: Some policemen are being mainly accused of taking bribes, being biased against certain parties and misconduct. What are the measures taken to look into their welfare?
There are 86,000 men and women in the Police and 99% are genuine professional people. Yes, I agree that there may be corrupt personnel in the balance of 1%. Since we have to have a clean Police service, we are worried about even a single such case and we are taking all steps to eradicate corruption in the service through checks and balances. It is a very small segment but we are working on it.
The Police Special Branch and our intelligence agency are on vigil to nab such people in the service and the public can also complain about them as we are taking prompt action to punish such policemen.
This can also be addressed through quality education. Now the Police Academy is affiliated with the Kotelawala Defence Academy to award degrees to our Police officers. They will also be given foreign study courses to increase their exposure internationally to make better policemen in the future.
Q: Intelligence sharing is a key to have a capable Police service to have a tough monitoring system to counter terrorism and extremism. What measures are being taken to have good coordination with regional and international Police services?
A good example is the Easter Sunday attacks. Although we had the information it was not discussed among the intelligence agencies and not given priority. Given the lack of capabilities of our own intelligence agencies, another country had to inform us about the attack.
During the past regime, these intelligence agencies were not working under one machinery. They were in their own compartments. But now under this Government, all intelligence agencies have been brought under one umbrella, where we meet and discuss things and share information every week. We foresee threats, exchange information and counter them under an effective mechanism.
We work as one team, which is cohesive and strong. The main intelligence arm of the Police is the State Intelligence Service, which is mainly handling international fronts.
Q: You said you are going to recruit more policemen. What about deploying more men to the Police stations in the north and east?
We have increased the number of Police stations in the north and east and will be recruiting more Tamil-speaking policemen from these two provinces under the recruitment drive to get 100,000 policemen. We invite youth in two provinces to join the Police service.
Q: Today’s warfare is not in jungles but in cyberspace. Is the Police geared to face this new threat of cybercrimes?
The Police Special Branch is fully geared and equipped to handle cyber threats. The CID has also enhanced its capabilities and we have also established a special section to handle money laundering, human smuggling and cybercrimes. We have selected well-trained highly capable Police officers to handle these specialised areas and they have been trained abroad.
