Editorial from The Island - Tears for the police

November 8, 2014

On reading Police Spokesman SSP Ajith Rohana’s response to our query why no action had been taken against the Ministerial Security Division (MSD) personnel found at a nightclub with Minister Mervyn Silva’s son Malaka during last Saturday’s brawl, tears rolled down our cheeks with the corners of our mouths trembling in our attempts not to cry.

Our tears were for the police.

SSP Rohana sees nothing wrong with MSD guards protecting politicians’ offspring who, he has said, should be provided with security wherever they go! If there are threats to politicians or the ordinary people, for that matter, and their children they must be protected. But, what is at issue is not the MSD personnel accompanying a minister’s son or daughter to school, hospital, the theatre, the cinema, a shopping mall, a gym etc. The issue here is that the MSD guards have been used to protect a politician’s son at a nightclub, of all places, in spite of his history of drunken brawls at those places.

We thought bovine King Kekille, who always punished the innocent party in a dispute and Mahadena Mutta, on whom people could depend on for the wrong advice, were only fictitious characters in folk stories. But, it looks as if they had really lived in this country. For, some high ranking officials in the public service seem to have inherited their idiotic genes as it were.

Isn’t the Police Spokesman aware that following an incident where Malaka and his bodyguards assaulted an accountant in 2007 a court order was issued prohibiting him from visiting nightclubs?

What one gathers from the Police Spokesman’s explanation is that the armed MSD personnel can even accompany politicians’ sons visiting brothels and wait outside until the latter’s return! The SSP ought to remember that Malaka is no ordinary son. He and his bodyguards set upon a group of Police Narcotics Bureau sleuths conducting a raid on a Colombo nightclub in 2005. Those officers were punched, kicked and even pistol-whipped; the assailants were granted police bail! In 2012, Malaka and his goons assaulted an army major at a hotel. How can anyone justify the police being detailed to protect such a person at nightclubs?

It is eight days since Malaka’s latest brawl and the Police Spokesman tells us that the police haven’t so far been able to find out whether the MSD guards had been inside the nightclub at the time of the incident! So much for the ability of the police to conduct investigations!

The police promptly release to the media videos of robbers staging heists or burglars breaking into shops, but they have not yet shown us the footage obtained from the CCTV cameras at the nightclub where Malaka assaulted a foreign couple last week. Are we to conclude that it is in the process of being edited?

It is high time a proper threat assessment in respect of all politicians was done and security provided to most of them reduced drastically. If a minister can spare several of his MSD guards to go with his son to nightclubs, that means he does not have a security threat at all. Why should such politicians be given security?

The government brags that it eliminated terrorism. It should be given the credit for that feat. If the LTTE had been around, this country would not have been safe for anyone—not even those who are now commemorating Prabhakaran and calling for war crimes probes. But, its ministers continue to be protected as though Prabhakaran were still alive. There is no threat to them from anyone; they are a threat to one and all except their political masters. It is the people who should be protected against them.

People who visit police stations are made to wait for hours to have their complaints recorded for want of personnel. Burglars, armed robbers, rapists, chain snatchers and other anti-social elements are having a field day, but community policing is conspicuous by its absence owing to a severe shortage of policemen. Nevertheless, the police have enough personnel to guard politicians and their violent sons!

We suggest that most of the MSD personnel be attached to the police stations that experience a manpower shortage. The time has come for the political dregs scourging the society to be stripped of their firearms and security. The Tigers in spite of their terrorism had some discipline; they at least obeyed their leader. But, the gun-toting politicos and their sons are a law unto themselves. If they are allowed to enjoy the freedom of the wild ass in this manner not even the thirty three million (this thun kotiyak) deities who are believed to have made this country their abode will be able to protect us.