She heard the rumbling of a car engine and when she looked outside her gate, she saw her husband's car with its engine running, lights on and the driver's door open - but there was no sign of Keith Noyahr.

Panic stricken

Absolutely panic stricken, Roshini Noyahr had called The Nation's Deputy Business Editor, Gamini Abeywardena, and told him that her husband had gone missing. The newspaper's Editor Lalith Alahakoon was just falling asleep when he received a phone call from Abeywardena informing him that Keith Noyahr was missing.

Alahakoon informed Krishantha Cooray, and the two immediately headed to the Noyahr residence in Dehiwela. When they arrived at the house, they were sighted by Keith's young children - a son and daughter - who burst into hysteria.

"Where is my daddy? Bring my father home!" Noyahr's daughter had wailed in a curdling burst of agony. Alahakoon, being the veteran journalist that he is, wasted little time. Upon realising that Keith had been abducted, he immediately telephoned Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapakse to seek help in locating him.

"First I called the Defence Secretary, and I informed that Keith had been abducted," Lalith Alahakoon told The Sunday Leader. "Mr. Rajapakse asked 'what could be the reason' and whom we could suspect to have a hand in this. When I brought to his notice that Keith was the paper's defence analyst who never hesitated to expose any security lapses in the newspaper, the Defence Secretary immediately denied any security forces involvement," Alahakoon added.

President assures action

The Nation Editor's next calls had been to President Mahinda Rajapakse and Minister Karu Jayasuriya, seeking their help to trace Noyahr's whereabouts. The President had assured Alahakoon that he would take action to nab the culprits and that he would ensure that the police and the IGP act on the case immediately.

By this time CID officers had already arrived at the Noyahr residence to begin conducting preliminary investigations.

Alahakoon and Krishantha Cooray had then left the house and while they were driving around Colombo conducting their own search, they received a call from Roshini Noyahr, shortly before 5.00 am, informing them that her husband had been dumped outside the house - and was alive, although unconscious.

"We rushed to Keith's home and found that he was not in a stable condition as blood was oozing from his right ear with head injuries and multiple bruises. We were told that Keithhad fainted no sooner he reached home. We immediately rushed him to the Accident Service at the Colombo National Hospital, and had him admitted" Alahakoon narrated.

According to Krishantha Cooray, Keith Noyahr is still "not in a position to tell us exactly what had happened to him" as he is "still in trauma." The Rivira CEO said that they "did not leave a single stone unturned" in the search for their Associate Editor and were thankful that he had been released.

Media barred

When journalists and photographers from The Sunday Leader visited the Colombo National Hospital they were barred by police from speaking with the injured journalist. A police constable who identified himself as Prageeth, attached to the Colombo Crimes Division (CCD), told us that he was "asked not to allow the media to speak to the patient since he is sick."

When we asked who had given the order, PC Prageeth said that it was the patient himself. However, when we explained that we were aware that Keith Noyahr has barely spoken a word since being admitted, the constable relented, saying that it was his superior, ASP, Nuwan Wedisinghe, who had ordered the police to keep the media out.

The Sunday Leader nevertheless managed to contact Noyahr on a mobile telephone, and he told us in great pain that he was not in a position to speak. The journalist declined to comment on whether he still feared for his life.

Another police officer, constable Mahesh from the Dehiwela Police, took up position at the entrance to Ward 72 where Keith Noyahr was being treated, and prevented media personnel from entering the ward. "I was asked not to allow any media personnel to enter the ward by OIC Dehiwela, Ranjith Kottachchi," PC Mahesh boomed.

PC Mahesh was clueless as to the reason that journalists were barred from entering the ward. "We are following instructions but other than that we don't know why the media was banned from entering the ward," the PC said.

When we contacted ASP Wedisinghe from the CCD, he denied having ordered his officers to prevent the media from speaking to Noyahr. The ASP told us that he understands that the situation is under the control of the Dehiwela Police, and that when he visited Noyahr himself, he was unable to speak.

ASP Wedisinghe is of the view that Noyahr is suffering from shock, and upon recovery, would be able to relate details of his abduction and assault to the police, enabling them to catch the persons responsible.

Chilling resemblance

The case of Keith Noyahr bears a chilling resemblance to a previous abduction and assault case. Before the government suspended the broadcast licence of the Asia Broadcasting Corporation last year, one of its newscasters, Nadaraja Guruparan was abducted on his way to work in the morning and was released shortly after midnight.

Guruparan was so terrified by his ordeal and the threat to his family that he is yet to make a police complaint or confide in any authority as to who was behind his kidnapping and what he endured at the hands of his captors. The Sivaram (Taraki) killers, whose body was found dumped near parliament, again employed very similar tactics.

While Keith Noyahr's fears are more than justified - given not just his own ordeal, but the number of other journalists in Sri Lanka who have been killed, shot, stabbed, thrashed and maimed in their line of work over the last two and a half years - it is likely that the growing trend of silence will allow the culture of impunity for the use of media workers as punching bags and target practice to continue.

With the President appointing yet another police commission to investigate this most recent case, we cannot help but ask whether the government will not fast run out of officials to appoint to the huge swathes of commissions it has been appointing over the last two years to investigate the rising number of attacks on the media, with absolutely nothing to show on the results card.

'Luxurious' pet clinic gone to the dogs

A healthy looking Joy before being sent to PetsVCare The outer facade of PetsVCare’s Dematagoda kennels

By Ranjith Jayasundera

A trail of tragic pet deaths at a well established animal hospital in Colombo has left several dog owners shaken and emotionally scarred.

The most recent canine to have suffered from the alleged neglect of this institution was a 10-year-old cocker spaniel, aptly named Joy by his owners. According to Joy's regular veterinarians at the Pet Vet Clinic on Malalasekera Mawatha, Colombo 7, he was "the most healthy, adorable and well behaved" of their regular cocker spaniel patients.

Joy grew up in a family environment, with two teenage girls and their parents. Even after his elder 'sisters' left the country after finishing school just over a year ago, Joy remained a very "easy and pleasant" animal according to his veterinarians, until he was brought blind to his knees by a travesty of animal rights just over a month ago.

Joy's owners were to travel to visit one of their daughters in Australia on April 10 - leaving the homely cocker spaniel alone for the first time in his 10 year life. As opposed to leaving Joy with domestic aides at home, his owners were drawn to the boarding services of the 'PetsVCare' Animal Hospital whose head office is at Staple Street.

'Luxurious'

PetsVCare markets their kennels as almost luxurious, their marketing material claiming that boarded animals receive "nutritious meals, regular exercise and veterinary care when required." They also advertise "special services" to talk to animals from long distance, allowing owners to record messages which "will be played to (their) pets."

Joy's owners say that they were "so impressed with the big, clean kennels and facilities" they were shown, that they were happy to leave their pet in the care of PetsVCare's Dematagoda boarding centre.

"But we wanted to be extra careful," they said. "We spoke to the resident vet, one Dr. Herath, and told him that if there were any problems at all, to contact Dr. Janaki Collure of Pet Vet, where Joy is regularly treated. The doctor assured us that he would both SMS us and tell Dr. Janaki if there were any problem at all with Joy, and so we left to Australia without much concern."

When Joy's owners returned to Sri Lanka on April 28, their first stop was to pick up Joy from his boarding place. The sight that greeted them is best described in their own words.

"When they brought the dog out, we were absolutely horrified. Joy looked scrawny, his coat was mangy, and his ears were coated with dirt and waxed. It looked like he had barely been fed or walked, and his eyes were covered with pus. The poor animal couldn't see us at all."

Severe and terminal

Joy's shaken owners bundled her into their car and rushed him to Pet Vet, who diagnosed what turned out to be severe and terminal illnesses. The doctors at Pet Vet told The Sunday Leader that when they received Joy, he was in a "depressed and shaken" state, and that he had lost five kilograms of weight since he was last examined by them before April 10.

"He was badly dehydrated, and had lost his eyesight. His right eye had a very big ulcer. The left eye had an infection that we were able to treat, but there was nothing that we could do about the ulcer. The most frightening revelation came when our blood tests showed that Joy's kidneys were failing."

From that time, according to the Pet Vet doctors, there was very little that they could do to save Joy - all they could do was try to make him more comfortable in his last days. Whilst Pet Vet did what they considered their duty by caring for their lifetime patient, Joy's owners did what they considered theirs, and tried to seek an explanation and justice - from PetsVCare.

They first went looking for Dr. Herath, to whom they had spoken to when handing over Joy, whom they could not find. "We spoke to a Dr. Surangi, who asked us to contact the hospital's director, a Dr. Sumith Wanniarachchi. When we called Dr. Wanniarachchi, he told us that he was in Kandy and that he would look into the case when he came to Colombo," they related.

"He did come to Colombo and was very casual about the whole affair. He said that the eye injury was not a serious issue and they had treated him for kidney ailment. Dr. Wanniarachchi said that he would refund the fees that we had paid PetsVCare for boarding the animal, and asked us to go to court if we had any further grievances," Joy's owner said.

Callous attitude

The doctor's callous attitude persisted when this newspaper contacted him, and the position he took, seemed at odds to say the least - with the Pet Vet medical file that we were shown, detailing tens of pages of medical records for Joy from the time he was born in June 1997.

Dr. Wanniarachchi told us that joy was a "very old" dog who was already a "chronic kidney failure animal" at the time that he was admitted. He denied that Dr. Herath was given any instructions to contact Joy's regular vets in case of a problem asking: "even if they did this, there is nothing in writing so how can they prove it?"

Asked about why Joy's eyes and ears were not cleaned while he was with PetsVCare, the hospital's director admitted that he "didn't know" but was insistent that there was no evidence to prove any of Joy's owner's allegations.

"I, on the other hand, have evidence that the dog was sick even when they admitted him," he told us, although he declined to share his evidence saying he would save it for the possibility of a future court battle with Joy's owners. "Ultimately this will go to court, so I won't give anything to you" he said.

Dismissing the allegations of both Pet Vet and Joy's owners as "a lot of rubbish," Dr. Wanniarachchi stated that PetsVCare was one of the country's premier animal hospitals and was a well respected and reputed institution.

Most unusual

Although the doctors at Pet Vet were too professional to directly point fingers they did allow that it was "most unusual" for a dog to "go blind, lose nearly a third of its weight, suffer from terminal renal failure and pick up infections," over a period of three weeks, if it was properly cared for.

An animal rights lawyer told The Sunday Leader that although Dr. Wanniarachchi feels that the burden of proof lies on Joy's owners for a successful prosecution, the true situation may be reversed in a court of law. He said the Latin legal term res ipsa loquitur or "the facts speak for themselves" puts the spotlight squarely on the accused if the available facts are against him or her.

"Under the law of delict, and with good legal advice, the dog's owners could seek a civil remedy through a magistrate's court," he said. "The situation is similar to if you were to leave a brand new car in someone's possession, and the car is seriously damaged when you come to collect it. If you can prove that the animal was in good health just before being handed over to PetsVCare, and was in terrible shape immediately upon being collected, then the burden would be on them to prove that they were not responsible for the dog's deteriorated health condition."

The lawyer said that should a magistrate come to the conclusion that there was neglect on the part of a veterinarian or the animal boarding facility, the court would, "in its role as guardian," inform the Veterinary Council, which could in turn take a decision on the vet or hospital's practicing or operating licence.

Telling piece

Perhaps the most telling piece of evidence for an allegation of neglect is the result of a blood test administered on Joy by PetsVCare on April 22, six days before Joy was returned to his owners. The report was ordered by Dr. Herath, who has since been impossible to contact, and its serum chemistry section shows a Creatinine level of 8.55 milligrams per decilitre.

Apart from the fact that the report itself states that a normal level of Creatinine is between 0.5 and 1.5 milligrams per decilitre, a level of 8.55 would indicate imminent liver failure, according to the doctors at Pet Vet. The fact that PetsVCare did not inform the owners of the results of the report or alert Joy's regular veterinarians ever, is sufficient grounds, according to animal rights lawyers, for a plaint to be filed against the company by Joy's owners.

Horror stories

The tragedy of Joy however, was just one of many horror stories related to The Sunday Leader by pet owners. One owner claimed to have had two dogs who died due to ill treatment by PetsVCare. "About three years ago, I took my dog, Sugar, who was six years old, to PetsVCare, who administered the wrong course of injections. After three days, Sugar died due to the poisoning from the injections," he said.

"We thought that this was an isolated incident or the incompetency of just one vet, as PetsVCare is one of the biggest animal care operations. So last year we took a little puppy called Scooby, to PetsVCare, about three months old, who was not eating, and was constantly vomiting."

Scooby's owners told us that PetsVCare took an X-ray and found a stone inside the puppy's stomach, and that they had given a course of injections and oral medication to break up the stone and help pass it out.

After Scooby seemed to have recovered, they said PetsVCare "took another X-ray and said that Scooby had a heart disease, and they started giving injections. The first injection was saline, even though the dog was eating fine. Then they just kept giving more injections until the puppy's stomach exploded, while he was on the operating table."

According to Scooby's owners, he died within minutes, and that was the last time they ever went to PetsVCare.

A worker at the Animal Welfare Association, Amanda Fernando, also told this newspaper about two dogs that were misdiagnosed and mistreated by PetsVCare, one of which was in December 2007.

One was a healthy German Shepherd named Kelly, whom PetsVCare had treated for a urine infection and various other types of ailments, until it was finally diagnosed - too late in the day to cure her - that Kelly was suffering from liver cancer, to which she eventually succumbed.

Mortified

"Even after treating her for various ailments for three months, they were unable to diagnose that Kelly had liver cancer until it was too late. Her owners were absolutely mortified. One of them lives in Pennsylvania, USA, and was absolutely shaken to find out that Kelly was dying of cancer, when he was told throughout that she was suffering from a simple urine infection," Fernando told us.

"Kelly's treatment came to between Rs.150,000 and Rs.200,000, but her family would have paid any amount to bring her back to health. What PetsVCare did was just soak up money from the family without providing proper treatment at all," she charged.