(COLOMBO) – The prison authorities in Sri Lanka are finding it hard pressed to provide space for a sudden large influx of inmates following a country-wide crackdown on suspected drug offenders and other suspected criminal elements, officials conceded on Saturday.
A little more than 10,000 suspects have already been rounded up in the crackdown that started on Sunday last week and is due to end on Christmas Eve and the bulk of them, mainly drug dependants have been placed in holding cells until their cases could be heard in a Court.
“There are only 30 jails throughout the country and the maximum holding capacity is 13,000 but now we have reached more than double that figure”, the officials said.
They added that the majority of the current inmates in the jails are those awaiting trial and it could take many years owing to the work load of cases and the lethargic judicial process in the country.
Some of them have been detained for years simply for failing to pay a fine and for other minor offences, the officials added.
In the latest crackdown ministry officials said that those nabbed for minor offences would most likely be granted police bail while the others will be jailed and this will be done on a case by case basis.
The crackdown has also come in for harsh criticism from human rights activists and others who claim that the so-called special anti-crime operation was merely a ‘road show’ to prop up the image of a controversial police official who has been appointed as the country’s police chief.
Actg. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Deshabandu Tennakoon has come under increasing calls to step down after the country’s highest court found him guilty of violating the fundamental rights of an individual who had been tortured while in custody.
The court heard that Tennakoon was a Superintendent of Police that took place at a police facility in Mirihana in the outskirts of the commercial capital of Colombo.
Tennakoon along with three other officers had stripped the victim naked and later whipped him with a rubber hose before forcing the man to rub a stinging balm on his genitals.
The court also ordered the National Police Commission to initiate an inquiry and to take the appropriate action as deemed necessary against Tennakoon and the other officers.
A lawyer’s collective is also pushing for the removal of Tennakoon from office since he has been convicted of a serious offence and therefore needs to be punished.
Tennakoon is a close buddy of the Public Security Minister Tiran Alles.
Alles has also drawn flak from the legal fraternity over recent remarks that encouraged the police to carry out arbitrary killings of suspected drug offenders and other known criminals.
Alles along with Tennakoon initiated the latest crackdown on suspected crime elements and have vowed to eliminate them at the very earliest despite the protests.
