Grease Yakkas In Puttalam

•  Terror spreads like greased lightning

By Abdul H. Azeez - in Puttalam and Kalpitiya

When Pakeer Thambi Kalladi Picchai (62) first heard about grease yakkas he thought it was a lie. But on Friday  August 19 he went through an experience that left no doubts in his mind about the reality of their existence.
Picchai lives on a farm spanning five acres. The area of Puttalam he lives in, Karaithivu, Arikkavillu consists of vast stretches of farmland.  Houses are located far apart from each other. At 5 p.m. his neighbours came to his house and asked him to help look for some suspicious people seen wandering about the area.
He took his torch and set off after breaking fast, but could not find anyone. Thus he returned home.
He was sitting with his wife on the porch when he saw a light emanating from a mobile phone near the shop at his gate. Usually people who come to his shop at that time of the night will call out to him, but these people, whoever they were,  remained silent.
Picchai picked up his torch and went to investigate. As he approached, he spotted three figures moving away. They crossed the road and crept into the bush on the other side. Picchai followed. With his torch he could see them running away, but one of them was lagging behind. He chased after him and called out to him to stop. When he did not respond he grabbed him from behind around the neck.
Though over sixty, he struggled with his captive on the ground as he yelled out for help. But his neighbours were now quite far away. He says the man had iron rods strapped to the inside of his forearms and that at the push of a button, blades would emerge with a swishing noise.
The other two were meanwhile at a distance, watching. One  shout from his captive, who had remained silent throughout the struggle so far; made them suddenly appear with a thumping noise right in front of Picchai. As he looked up, a steel bar came crashing down on him. He held up his hand in defence and badly fractured it. At the same time he grasped the end of the bar that hit him and his hand was badly cut by blades attached to the end of it.
His captive meanwhile had managed to get a clawed hand on Picchai’s face and had mauled it by dragging steely fingers across his face. His face was badly cut and his jaw was dislocated. He fainted and was later found by neighbours. He says that his assailants wore slippery black clothing. Aside from the equipment strapped to their hands, they also wore boots that had a large spring at the sole.
Picchai is recovering the Chilaw Hospital He has had an operation on his arm and was scheduled for another on his jaw when we spoke to him. “I am thankful to Allah for giving me strength when I needed it,” he says.
The residents of Puttalam are scared. They are terrified. Their fear is reflected in the way they treat strangers even during day time. Police and armed forces have cracked down on civilians instead of seeking to quell their fears about grease yakkas. On, August 21 a massive protest was triggered off by a grease devil attack on a woman in Puttalam. This protest got out of hand and one policeman Navarathna Bandara (31) was killed.
“We are completely shocked at what happened, and oppose any violent action on the part of the public against the armed forces, ” said the Chairman of the Trustee Board of the Puttalam Mosque S.R.M. Muzammil. The trustee board is fearful that the death of the policeman, who was a Sinhalese man, will spark ethnic tensions in Puttalam, an area that still harbours bloody memories of the Muslim-Sinhala race riots that happened in 1976.
Muzammil cited incorrect media reports published in the Divaina stating that the mosque authorities instigated the crowds to attack the police, “this is a blatant lie and an attempt to incite racial hatred. The mosque tried only to control the crowds and to prevent them from getting out of control,” he said.
People in an around Puttalam want the police to help them in addressing the grease yakka problem. But the police have so far only hindered them in even helping  themselves. On August 22, four people were beaten up and arrested when they were out in the streets hunting for a suspicious character. The man was seen jumping about and running very fast. When the police was called in to help, they arrested the people who called in to complain.
The Headquarters Inspector of the Puttalam police station,  Kingsley Gunasekara said that the people were arrested because “they were trying to catch grease yakkas, and doing the job that the police should have done.” When asked why the police have thus far not captured any “grease yakkas,” Gunasekara said that this was because grease yakkas did not exist. Despite witness statements that the ‘grease yakkas’ weren’t actually wearing grease but only wearing slippery clothing, Gunasekara offers the explanation that grease yakkas do not exist because prolonged exposure to grease will be a dead giveaway since grease, he opined is tough to remove from the skin. He also thinks that grease is harmful to the skin and will result in blocked pores and skin diseases.
In Kaplitiya a policeman was beaten up when he was suspected of being a grease yakka on the night of  August 20. As it turned out later the policeman had been shopping for mosquito coils at a local shop in plain clothes.  In response to the ensuing  furore the police had arrested thirteen individuals the next day. Eyewitnesses who spoke on conditions of anonymity said that the arrested were badly beaten up. They were taken to the Mundal Police station.
Speaking to The Sunday Leader Police Spokesperson Prishantha Jayakody said that some people who were arrested had already been produced in courts and remanded. Others will be produced in courts shortly. “The charges vary from incident to incident. In the Puttalam area suspects are being held on charges ranging from murder, inciting unrest and destruction of property’ he added. Grease yakkas have been sighted all over the area. A woman in Kalpitiya was attacked and has left the area with her family. Muzammil, the chief trustee of the Puttalam Mosque acknowledges that none of the ‘grease yakkas’ have actually caused any harm to property or people other than wounding women. “It seems like an elaborate scare tactic, more than anything else” he said.
An incident at the Noroccholai power plant cast doubt on the activities of the army and police in handling the situations of unrest.On August 22,  large crowds gathered at the Noroccholai Church because a villager had been arrested. The arrest followed another assault on a policeman who was discovered being on the other side of a wall over which a suspected grease yakka had escaped, they said.
A couple of hundred people who were there were joined by Perumal Sivakumar, a patient after by-pass surgery,  who was on his way to get his medicine (he is a bypass patient).
No sooner had he joined the crowd three vehicles had pulled up and some fifteen members of the armed forces stepped out. The armed men then used their batons to disperse the crowd. Sivakumar was seriously beaten up. In a panic he had run to a friend’s house where he had  collapsed. Family and friends immediately rushed Sivakumar to hospital but he showed no signs of improvement. The next day he died of a heart failure.
Recounting this incident, family members said that the injuries that Sivakumar received at the hands of the armed forces were not recorded in his medical documents. Sivakumar is survived by his wife and three children. Todate, no one has mentioned anything about compensation to them.Puttalam is heavy with  army presence. Massive combat tanks are parked in strategic positions to intimidate would-be trouble makers. Armed forces stand guard everywhere day and night. Grease yakkas still roam the imaginations of the public and many of them cast suspicious glances at the army. This in a climate where the police and other authorities have done nothing to acknowledge or allay public fear and take complaints seriously, has contributed to an ever- consistent atmosphere of uneasiness and fear  that is in the air in Puttalam.

Downright Greasy

By Maryam Azwer

Eighteen year old Uma Devi from the Eastern village of Kataparichan, Muttur, was attacked by two strange men last Tuesday (23). She sustained injuries which looked like scratch marks, across her left arm and chest.
The same evening, in Colombo, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa met with heads of the Muslim community to deny any state, police or security forces’ involvement in the numerous attacks and crimes attributed to so-called grease yakkas. Rajapaksa offered full state and military support and security for the people.
The series of crimes involving what people have termed grease yakkas have plagued the country for over a month now, and confusion prevails as to who these people are, what they want, and whether or not incidents are related.
“Although seventy to eighty percent of what we hear are rumours, around twenty to thirty percent is definitely what people have seen. We have received these complaints from reliable people in society, and they cannot be ignored,” said Moulavi Abdullah Mahmood Alim, President of the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU) Puttalam branch.
“Going through the media reports we understand that incidents occurring all over the country are similar. This prompts the general public to believe that this is a co-ordinated effort,” he said, adding that “the public are in a very confused state.”

Taking the law into their own hands

Last Sunday, in Puttalam, Police Sergeant Navaratne Bandara was brutally beaten to death by an unruly mob, allegedly over a grease yakka related incident.
The week before, the public clashed with the Navy in the Eastern towns of Muttur and Kinniya, claiming that an alleged grease yakka had been spotted, in both towns, escaping into Navy territory.
In the wake of these and other similar incidents, Defence Secretary Rajapaksa last week noted that what prevailed was a situation blown out of proportion by people taking the law into their own hands.
Commenting on the incident that resulted in the police officer’s death in Puttalam, Moulavi Abdullah of the ACJU said that the perpetrators were a mob of unruly thugs whom no one had any control over. “We totally condemn and regret this incident,” he said.
He went on to say that “We condemn the general public taking the law into their own hands, but when the well-trained armed forces are slow in taking action, people lose confidence in them and it results in such situations.
“We accept what the Defence Secretary says but at the same time it is impossible to ignore what the people are saying. According to what the media is reporting, it does seem that these incidents are mostly taking place in minority areas,” he said.
Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar noted that tension had arisen among the people, because they were afraid. “We have told the people that they must not try to take the law into their own hands, but what must be understood is that the people are also very tense, and feel that they have an obligation to protect their families,” he said.

Confusion and Fear

“The general public does not believe that the forces are behind this grease man issue, but they are confused about how the forces are handling this matter,” said Kattankudy Mosque Authority President, Mohammad Subair.
He explained that there had been a recent incident where people had thrown stones at a police post at nearby Palamunai, claiming that a grease yakka had been sighted. Instead of taking action against these people only, however, Subair said that the forces had entered Kattankudy and created unrest there.
The one thing that appears to cause  people to panic over the unrest caused by these grease yakas, is their confusion over the reactions of the state, the police and the armed forces.
Police claim that no such personality exists, and that reports of a greasy miscreant are either rumours, or isolated incidents involving random criminals trying to create unrest.
“There is no such thing as a grease yakka,” said Police Spokesperson SP Preshantha Jayakody. “These are only rumours spread by people. These are individual cases,” he added.
However, people claim otherwise. They claim that incidents taking place in different parts of the island are too similar in nature to be unrelated.
Bishop of Trincomalee-Batticaloa, Reverend Joseph Kingsley Swamipillai, said, “The people who have witnessed these mysterious persons claim that they have sharp nails, and can slip away easily. In addition, they say that they wear some special kind of boots, with springs at the bottom.”
He added that “I have to believe this because the reports are the same. We see the same pattern all over the place. This issue cannot be ignored or taken lightly. We would like the government to take steps to stop this menace,” he said.

What happened to Uma Devi?

A doctor at the Muttur Base Hospital, who did not wish to be named, confirmed that the injuries sustained by Uma Devi were “superficial parallel lines on her left arm and chest, made by a sharp, needle-like object.”
A terrified Uma Devi had told doctors that she had been grabbed by the unidentified men when she had stepped outside her house, at around 7:30 p.m. She had started screaming for help, but the men had gotten away, leaving her another victim of an unknown horror.