After long time, How are you? I think these days your sleeping is disturbed by nightmares. We also frightened.

Unfortunately you and your media doesn’t care about innocent people who lost their lives in bomb blasts. After the yesterday’s bomb blast the behaviour of media was ugly and awful. They showed entertainments after the news of Piliyandala blast. There were music, teledramas and half naked pictures of Bollywood actresses.

I fell the aim of this hypocricy was to forget the killings and stop bulding a crucial discussion on war among people. Now all you and your people have forgotten the Late MP Jeyaraj and Wimal Weerawanse incident. Within two or three weeks you and your fellows will forget the Pilliyandala blast. This is clearly known by the LTTE. According to the LTTE Sinhalese are lazy and forget the past very easy.

This type of behaviour will make this beautiful Sri Lanka a failed state within a very short period of time.

Yours sincerely,

Sinhala Buddhist Daughter.

Palitha Tissa Kumara was an Artisan by profession skilled in paintings and carvings had returned home from Galle on 2nd February 2004. The Sub Inspector Mr.Silva of Welipanna police with four other police officers had come to his residence around 8.30a,m and had wanted Palitha to come to the Police Station to assist them to paint the police emblem for the Independence Day celebrations. Palitha had agreed to accompany Silva and no sooner he got near the police jeep, Silva had hit Palitha with his pistol on his chin thrice after which blood started oozing with his boots and had pushed him into the police jeep. The said police officers thereafter had proceeded towards the Police Station and at Galathara Junction they had arrested one Don Shantha. Both of them were brought to the Welipenna Police Station.

At the Police Station Palitha and Don Shantha were taken to the Silva’s room and he had started hitting Palitha with a wicket on his shoulders , neck, arms, head ,spine and on his knees over 80 times. Whilst hitting Palitha , Silva had told Don Shantha that this would be the manner in which others also would be treated and in the process of assaulting Palitha ,Silva had told Palitha the victim to hand over the bombs and the weapons which were in his possession and to confess about the robberies he had carried out. Palitha had denied any knowledge of bombs weapons or the robberies. According to Palitha this had continued for about two hours and thereafter at the intervention of about 8 police officers and after one of those officer pulled the wicket from the Silva’s hand he had stopped assaulting Palitha.

Silva, ( Sub Inspector) thereafter brought a person known as Sarath who was suffering from Tuberculosis. Silva had got Palitha to open his mouth and told the said Sarath to spit into Palitha’s mouth. In the process Silva had told Palitha that this was done so that he would die of the disease. On seeing this the police officer who had intervened earlier to stop the assault had brought a bottle of water and got Palitha to wash his mouth.

Palitha was kept in the police cell for about 3 days and on the third day Silva again assaulted Palitha by punching on his chest several times and one of the punches had hit his face causing injuries . Later on that day Palitha was taken by some police officers to the Iththapana District Hospital and was shown to a doctor. After examining Palitha, he had refused to admit him to the hospital due to the serious nature of the injuries. Palitha was brought back to the Police Station and later taken to the same hospital and was shown to a lady doctor. She too had refused to admit Palitha to the hospital. Then Palitha was taken to the Weththewa Government Hospital and thereagain the hospital authorities had refused to admit Palitha.

That night Silva had come to the police cell with a grenade. It was taken out from a packing and Palitha was forced to place his thumb impression on wax which was thereafter placed on the grenade. Silva had obtained the signature of Palitha to a written statement without reading it out to him and Palitha states that he had done it for the fear of getting assaulted by Silva.

On 06.02.2004 Palitha was once again taken to Weththewa Hospital where the police had spoken to a gentleman wearing a pair of shorts and obtained his signature for some documents. Thereafter he was brought to the Police Station.

Around 5.30p.m. Palitha was produced before the acting Magistrate Mathugama where Palitha had stated about the assault and the thumb print that was taken on the grenade.

 Palitha filled a Fundemantle Rights application at the Supreme Court. He won it. The Supreme Court directs the 1st respondent (Silva) to pay Palitha a sum of Rs.5000/- personally as compensation and costs and the State to pay a sum of Rs.20000/- as compensation and costs. Accordingly Palitha will be entitled to a total sum of Rs25000/- as compensation and costs. The bench was comprised Shirani A. Bandaranayake ,J, T.B Weerasuriya, J and N. K. Udalagama , J.

Attorney General filled a case at High Court under the Torture Act. On October of 2006 the High Court found in the police officers favour. Sub Inspector Silva was acquitted of all charges of torture-the judge ruling in effect that violence to the extent evident in Palitha’s medical report was not excessive. The High Court Judgement is on appeal. This High Court judgement was given by judge Jayantha Perera.

Gerald was a cook employed by Colombo Dockyard Ltd. On 03.06.2002 at about 12.45p.m. the police officers of Wattala police station dragged Jerald into the jeep saying “you are the man we are looking for ” but gave no reason for his arrest.

After the arrest Jerald had been assaulted by police officers named Sena Suraweera and Perera and another officer with iron rods and wooden poles for about an hour despite crying out in pain ; that while being beaten he was questioned regarding a murder of which he knew nothing ; that had then been laid on the floor and his hands burnt with lighted matches ; that no statement had been recorded from him and that later that day he was taken to the Sena Suraweera then OIC Police Station; Wattala who had told him that they had made a mistake and that he would be released the next morning.

In view of Gerald’s condition his wife and brother took him to the Gampaha Wickramarachchi Ayurvedic Hospital where the physician advised immediate emergency treatment at a leading hospital. Accordingly they admitted him to Nawaloka Hospital Colombo, where he was in an intensive care unit for some time. On 14.06.2002 the doctors informed the wife that his condition was critical and that his wife was in danger.

Jerald produced the Nawaloka Hospital bill up to 25.06.2002 which showed a sum of Rs.704,788/=. He was discharged on 13.07.2002 and admitted immediately to the General Hospital Colombo and discharged from there on 17.07.2002.

Attorney-at-Law on behalf of Gerald filed a fundamental rights case on 19.06.2002 and Gerald won it. The respondants are Sena Suraweera(OIC) , Kosala Navaratne, Suresh Gunaratne, Weerasinghe, Renuka, Nalin Jayasinghe and Perera. Gerald was awarded a sum of Rs.800,000 as compensation and costs (excluding medical expenses ) payable on or before 30.06.2003.

Attorney General filed action against 6 police officers for the torture of Gerald Perera. A week before Gerald was to give evidence before court, he was assassinated while travelling by bus. The purpose of this assassination was to prevent Gerald Perera from giving evidence in court and identifying those who tortured him.

Unfortunately very recently Negombo High Court acquitted all the six police officers on the basis that there was no eye-witness evidence about the torture of Gerald Perera which took place inside the police station.

In Gerald’s Fundemental Rights case the supreme court said, the number of credible complaints of torture and cruel ,inhuman,and degrading treatment whilst in Police custody shows no decline. The duty imposed by Article 4(d) to respect ,secure and advance fundemental rights, including freedom from torture, extends to all organs of government and the Head of the Police can claim no exemption. …….A prolonged failure to give effective directions designed to prevent violations of Article 11 and to ensure the proper investigation of those which nevertheless take place followed by disciplinary or criminal proceedings may well justify the inference of acquiescence and condonation. ( if not also of approval and authorization).

The book” Conversations in a Failing State” was written by Patrick Lawrence . As Patrick described the whole thing peace, justice, public service, rulers are failing. Close to failed.

Patrick opened our minds to the public tragedy , ugliness of this country according to the fools and thugs Sinhala Buddhists by a saying of V. S. Naipaul. “There is a new kind of coming and going in the world these days” V. S. Naipaul once wrote.

I turned the second page of the book. “Something had happened in Sri Lanka. In the early 1970s not so many years before Naipaul recorded his journey through India, Sri Lanka had been the envy of the developing world. Famously as many Sri Lankans would remind me it had been admired by leaders such as Lee Kuan Yew the progress obsessed prime minister in Singapore who liked the new public housing he saw during a visit to Colombo. Now the place once to be emulated was a place full of tragedy and regret and missed opportunities. Almost unbelievably for a nation with so many advantages and so much promise it was a legitimate question by 2006 whether Sri Lanka could be called a failed state. So something also had not happened. There was an absence. What was it that was missing? What had seemed so promising but had not been delivered upon? What had happened or failed to happen or both in some combination or other? What had caused the clocks to stop?”

On the page 17, “Amid all their nostalgia Sri Lankans have had a few important moments of rejection too. Most famously they rejected the language of the colonizer by way of the law passed in 1956. And the language law proved to represent a rejection of much else apart from the medium of English. At bottom it was a rejection of a certain idea of order and governance and this rejection was later confirmed by way of the constitutions adopted in 1972 and 1978.   It would be difficult to overstate the significance of these acts of rejection. Sri Lankans are still living and more to the point dying as a consequence of them.

Patrick gave his utmost attention to “lights amid darkness” .Yes Patrick we need that lights without corruption. We not need corrupt lights. At present there are so many …every where starting from school to grave. We must not stop with these lights switch off but remove.

As a first step to switch on proper lights and eradicate ugliness and neglect everyone must read Patrick Lawrence book,”Conversations in a Failing State”.