Colombo: anti-drug operation leaves hundreds of children without parents

The police are making thousands of indiscriminate arrests. The children are abandoned without care and are often fed by neighbours living in poverty. The Sri Lankan Bar Association is trying to lead an action to investigate how the police are investigating.

Colombo (AsiaNews) - A recent anti-drug operation called "Yukthiya" (which means "justice") is leaving hundreds of children without parents due to indiscriminate arrests.

According to Patali Champika Ranawaka, former Energy Minister and leader of the United Republican Front (URF), the police have arrested a large number of drug addicts, sometimes both parents, especially in Colombo and the suburbs. In many cases, children go hungry while their parents are in detention.

According to two Mattakkuliya residents, Kamalini Sinnarasa and Vadivel Pathmarajah, more than 100 children aged between 2 and 10 were fed for days by social service organizations and often very poor neighbors.

In some areas of Colombo, most children whose parents were taken away by the police were unable to get even one meal a day. Some children between the ages of 4 and 10 started begging along the road with their little brothers.

Furthermore, most of those arrested are unable to pay their legal fees. Although the operation has already entered its third week, no key figures involved in drug trafficking have yet been arrested. While the police justify the operation, for several critics it is a farce.

The police are accused of using excessively heavy-handed tactics, including mass arrests, and of showing "little respect for people's privacy and dignity". Questions also arose about the low quantity of drugs recovered during the operation.

So far, 26,476 suspects have been arrested and according to the latest data, 54,090 raids have been conducted across Sri Lanka as of January 5 with police hunting for a further 2,453 suspects. About 1,549 people were sent to rehabilitation centers. Based on the findings obtained so far, the police have opened investigations into 216 cases, particularly regarding those who have accumulated large amounts of wealth through drug trafficking.

Police spokesperson SSP Nihal Thalduwa said the raids were carried out in targeted areas covering all 607 police stations in the country. Relatives of several people who had been arrested by the police contacted the Committee for the Protection of Prisoners' Rights to receive legal protections.

Lawyers Samantha Tennakoon, Nilmini Balasuriya and Kasun Hewapathirana told AsiaNews: "We are seriously concerned about the way the police are working in the "Yukthiya" operation. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) has decided to take up the matter with all stakeholders, including the President and Minister of Defence, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and Minister of Public Security Tiran Alles.

"All this must go through the legal procedure - they added -. We have raised our concerns several times in this regard and at the moment we are finalizing some communications to be made because very often lawyers who oppose police abuse are branded as legal spokespersons for drug traffickers."

BASL President Kaushalya Navaratne harshly criticized Minister Alles' provocative statements: "Sri Lanka is not a police state to shoot and kill people on sight when a justice system is in place."