According to the police, the suspect, identified as Mohamed Nizar alias ‘Army Chappa’, was shot when he attempted to attack a police team that went to find an arms cache hidden by the suspect in the Peliyagoda area. Police said they opened fire at the suspect in self defence.” — News Report on ColomboPage (29 July, 2009).

“Police Headquarters has instructed senior police officers to arrest nine underworld leaders wanted in connection with illegal arms possession, extortion, drug peddling and other crimes. … Police believe that crime and the drug trade could be considerably reduced if these underworld characters are put out of circulation.” — Daily Mirror, 30 July 2009.

“It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: ‘Exterminate all the brutes!’”

— Joseph Conrad, Heart Of Darkness, Part 2

Gratuitous police violence has become such a commonplace over the last few months that the general public is now immunized to the point of apathy. We hear regularly of villains who have been killed by the police while trying to “escape from custody”, in ways and under constraints that would make Houdini envious.

These not-so-mysterious deaths have been discussed ad nauseam in the newspapers, with the Ravaya, for instance, keeping score. I’ve even commented on police brutality in this column before. The Bar Association has taken the matter up for discussion, and to give them the benefit of the doubt, it cannot have been solely motivated by an alarming loss of potential clients.

The point is that there’s a wide awareness of what is going on, and a general trashing of the wild and wonderful stories concocted by the Police in their defense, but deafening silence from the President and his men. The LTTE was held accountable for killing kidnappers in Trincomalee in a James Bond-like operation.

A handcuffed suspect was shot dead in Colombo recently for trying to strangle a police officer while being taken to identify a hidden arms cache. The plots get more and more fantastic. The attempted escape motif is particularly dear to the heart of the Police it seems, resulting in a number of thematic variations, the common coup de grâce being, of course, a merciful release.

Common knowledge

On the one hand, then, there’s common knowledge that the police is taking the law into its own corrupt and cynical hands. The fact that in this business of “putting out of circulation” so-called underworld characters, Sri Lanka’s finest has the tacit approval (some would even say direction) of today’s political leadership is equally manifest. There are no untoward repercussions to officers who have “out-of-circulationed” suspects. Nor is there even a whisper of disquiet among the police hierarchy or the Defence Ministry about these derrings-do.

The premise is simple (it has to be if both our politicians and policemen have cottoned on to it together), and, simply put, it avers that well-known criminals (called IRCs in the old days) are incorrigible, unrepentant etc., and that they are mollycoddled by the legal system. Why waste time and money on court proceedings when they can be put out of circulation while trying to escape?

One aspect of this argument we have to grudgingly agree to, viz., that being incarcerated (as long as you’re not an IDP, that is) is by no means being “put out of circulation” as a result of the wonderful flexibility of our court/prison system. There’s the permanent hospitalization option, of course, but do not dismiss the private-apartment-with-all-mod-cons version as well.

Your address is not the best, being on the inside and all that, but, we’re told the accommodation gives new meaning to the cliché, “guest of the government”. So, the rhetoric in vogue today goes, why this criminal waste on criminals when the finest police force in the world (who are ably assisted as needed by the finest military force in the world, who in turn are led by the greatest leaders in the world, don’t forget.) can out-circulate the whole kit and caboodle for a few promotions and perks? I say, old chap, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few (rotten!) eggs, so pip pip and tally ho.

Rule of law

What about innocence before being proven guilty, and all that good stuff, then? Belief in the rule of law and due process are only for certain types of criminals in this system. These unfortunates are dispensable, even an embarrassment, to the now-upright police gentry and those that pull their strings. Yet, not all career criminals are asked to pay with their lives. There’s still some flexibility about modes of payment here, thank goodness!

Thus, the same dispensation that wants the riff-raff off the street and is not squeamish about taking extreme measures to ensure this, would wax eloquent about the fact that so-and-so is only an alleged rapist and such-and-such has only been charged for murder, not convicted.

Besides, being in Parliament means you are definitely off the street (except perhaps at election time, and some altruistic people are working on Plan B to remedy this grotesque anomaly too). Back to square one then, and an age-old narrative of the way power is self-perpetuating: protect your friends from the legal consequences of their actions, and at the same time deny access to legal protection to others. It’s certainly a fine way to make new friends. Dale Carnegie eat your heart out, as they say! It’s also a good strategic plan because soon there’ll only be our criminals left in what has become the fastest growing sector of the economy. 

There may also be another (hidden) merit in killing off all these underworld figures before they begin to sing like salalihiniyas about their (political) masters and (police) allies. The hit men and other miscellaneous second-tier gangsters can be disappeared (as in made to disappear which is another linguistic first for the region), leaving the first-tier to rehabilitate themselves as patriots, philanthropists and politicians.  

(gongalegodaya@hotmail.com)