It is exactly 16 years since the brutal assassination of Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge and the law enforcement is still as further away from identifying his killers as they had ever been, although his brother Lal Wickrematunge was quoted in an English daily yesterday as having said that the CID had uncovered significant details including the names and addresses of those involved in the murder.
If this is indeed true, why are the Police waiting ? This has been the pattern right throughout in regard to this investigation. Bits and pieces of information were being circulated from time to time but nothing concrete had been done to get to the bottom of the whole matter. There have been four Governments that ruled the country since Lasantha’s death, but none of them had made any headway in tracking down his assassins.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake pledged during his election campaign to bring to book the killers of both Lasantha and ruggerite Wasaim Thajudeen. There is no reason to doubt this pledge and at last the country and particularly the slain journalist’s family can expect the whole sordid saga behind the conspiracy to be bared in full and the perpetrators brought to justice. Lasantha’s daughter Ahimsa has been repeatedly pleading with all the rulers since the time of Lasantha’s death to ascertain the truth behind her father’s killing, from Australia where she is domiciled. She has repeated this request to President Dissanayake as well and no doubt is waiting with much expectation as do the other members of Lasantha’s family for a positive outcome.
It certainly has been a long wait for them. Also waiting with much expectation are the journalist colleagues of Lasantha as well as his friends, members of the lawyers’ fraternity, not to mention his former schoolmates of St. Benedict’s College, Kotahena, where Lasantha was not only a bright student but also a talented cricketer.
His killers continue to remain at large as they have done under the four Governments since the killing and at least this time around it is hoped that justice will be meted out to them. As Lasantha’s elder brother Lal claimed , the Police have a good idea about the perpetrators. Hence, now is the time to make a decisive move instead of waiting until the whole matter gets buried away with the passage of time as happened before. Besides, there is also the chance that the perpetrators could flee to another country where the long arm of the law cannot reach them.
The CID would have probed all the angles including the identities of those who may have had an axe to grind with Lasantha over his caustic wielding of the pen that targeted mostly the ruling party political leaders of the day and members of their families. He exposed many corrupt deals of the then rulers through his newspaper. This also resulted in the Sunday Leader being sealed on one occasion.
One must also recall that prior to his assassination, Lasantha came under physical attack on several occasions, with his home too becoming a target. At the time the accusing finger was directly pointed at the ruling party and especially the ruling family. Needless to say, only a superficial investigation was conducted back then with the matter eventually going into oblivion.
Hopefully, things will take a different turn this time around under the new Government led by President Dissanayake and the matter brought back to the surface and the killers and their Godfathers identified and dealt with under the law. This will also end the impunity relating to acts of crime that the country had been witnessing and also with it the political cover ups that have been going on where murder and crime in general was concerned.
Not just Lasantha, the cases of murder and disappearance of all journalists should be reopened and gone into detail with a view to uncovering all the perpetrators involved and also to identify those who ordered them (masterminds). Particular mention should be made of the murder of Subramanium Sivaram who wrote under the pen name Taraki, whose body was found close to Parliament. The disappearance of satirical columnist and cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda on the eve of the 2010 Presidential Election also remains a mystery to date.
There was one common thread in all these killings. All the journalist victims were those who were highly critical of the Government in their writings at the time. There were threats against them to begin with followed by physical assault and even killings when they continued to carry on regardless. This impunity has to be stopped once and for all and President Dissanayake is well placed to achieve this.
This is also the time to ensure that the country’s law is enforced to the letter irrespective of power or influence. This is because, hitherto , the law was only selectively applied which made the ordinary public lose faith in the justice system. Here too, President Dissanayake could be relied on to hold the scales even as he has already pledged.
