Sentence in Sandun Malinga murder case

DR.Vickramabahu Karunaratne-2017-01-19

The High Court of Badulla sentenced to death 5 police officers and a security officer for causing the murder of Sandun Malinga a 17-year- old young boy. The death sentence on the police officers gave a shock to the public that expects action on corrupt politicians and their friends, infamous for thuggery. Unusual but it is something that should have come many years ago. Because inquiries carried out by the FCID recently, exposed the involvement of police and security officers in crimes committed by corrupt politicians. It is true that this case did not receive much discussion in the media.

Sentencing of six persons connected with the police station should have been news that opens the eyes of the people to the criminal tendencies lingering behind the police uniform. It is acknowledged that inside police stations people are beaten and tortured. Some believe that should be the general nature of the police, in order to prevent robbery and other crimes committed by village ruffians. They argue that if the policemen are lenient household and village level crimes will increase. Often, middle class people are happy if tough police officers come to their area.

Precisely, because of such clumsy thinking, this judgment should have received serious attention of the Sri Lankan society as a whole, and for that purpose the media should have highlighted this issue and created opportunity for discussion of the case, so that the meaning of this sentence would have opened the eyes of people and also of all police officers throughout the country. It could have strong effects in the prevention of similar deaths in the future.

The boy and four of his relatives had gone to the town for the purpose of some business when police suddenly beat them in public and thereafter arrested them and took them to the police station and further tortured them. It appears that the police had a suspicion that Malinga was associated with crime and they wanted to get information. Their method is arbitrary torture of suspects. As a result, Sandun Malinga got seriously injured and the relatives, who were with him, tried to get the attention of the police to get medical care for the boy immediately. However, the police ignored all such requests. Next day the parents of the boy came to the police station and saw his condition, and again tried to get the attention of the police and also some higher up police officers in order to get some medical attention for Sandun Malinga . The police refused and instead, produced the five of them before a lady Magistrate. She remanded the five of them.

The boy died in his brother's arms

The next morning Sandun Malinga was with his brother and was suffering from a serious condition and even then the prison authorities failed to provide immediate medical attention to the boy and in the morning the boy died in his brother's arms inside the police station. Among the matters that should have been discussed is first of all the issue of arrest, without any justifiable ground.

It has become a common feature throughout police stations in Sri Lanka to arrest without any substantial grounds justifying the arrest. There are many instances in which serious injustices have happened and in some in which even very serious injuries have been caused on the innocent persons, simply because the police take this liberty to arrest anybody if they so wish. And most persons arrested by them are even without the slightest evidence to connect them to any crime. Secondly, there should be a discussion on the responsibility of judicial officers who have the powers to check the nature of arrest.

The matters that have not received serious attention of the National Police Commission and the Judiciary, the Ministries of Justice and Law and Order and also the Attorney General's Department are first of all the issue of arrest without substantial grounds for arresting a person. It is quite well known that in high profile cases which involved politicians who are known to the country, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) takes a lot of precaution in order to have a thorough inquiry to satisfy themselves of the evidence available of an accused before taking the step of arresting such an accused. However, this is not the case at the police station level, where almost every police station arrests a person purely without any warrant or any justifiable grounds for arresting the person. This matter needs very careful consideration and instructions need to be issued either by way of legislation or by regulations in order to stop this practice immediately. Legislation that should be brought about is that no arrest except in exceptional cases recognized by law, should be carried out without a warrant issued by a Magistrate and the Magistrate should be responsible to the safety of the arrested person.