by C. A. Chandraprema Courtesy The Island

September 15, 2018, 8:59 pm

Last week, a special cabinet meeting was held to discuss among other things the move by the CID to arrest the highest ranking military officer in the land and 24 hours later, a political activist made public, recordings of a senior police officer plotting the murder of the incumbent President and a possible Presidential candidate. The unbridled power that was given to the police to do just as they pleased with the government becoming increasingly dependent on the police for their political survival has now come to haunt them.

The hitherto completely unkown young man who made the revelations about an assassination plot, Namal Kumara came to the Divaina office last week and the details he gave about himself and his revelations are as follows. He was born in 1986 and had his schooling up to the O/Ls at the Borapola school. Thereafter he had come to Colombo in search of employment. His twin had joined the army and had been killed in action. He has three younger brothers. In Colombo he had worked at several private companies. He had got married in 2014 and settled down in Warakapola. In his Warakapola village there were 54 familes of which eight were involved in distilling illicit liquor and one was peddling drugs.

He had wanted to put an end to this. He had followed a course of training at the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board and become an activist in his village against alcohol and drugs. Later he had joined the Presidential Task Force Against Drugs and extended his activism to all parts of the country under the patronage of Dr Samantha Kithalagoda, the head of the Presidential Task Force. When Minister Mangala Samaraweera had suggested that the prices of beeer and arrack should be reduced, Namal Kumara had commenced a fast near the Dalada Maligawa which he had halted because a Secretary to the President had sent a message to him saying that President Sirisena will never allow such a reduction in prices.

Namal Kumara had first met Pujith Jayasundera in 2011 when he was the DIG in charge of Kandy and Matale when he had taken prompt action to investigate a crime and had won his admiration on that account. In 2017 Namal Perera had gone to see IGP Pujith Jayasundera to give him some information about a (unspecified) ‘threat to the nation’. The IGP had put him into contact with DIG Nalaka Silva of the TID and told him to work with him. The police had asked for his help during the Rohingya issue in Mt Lavinia. Namal Kumara states that DIG Silva was working with the intention of becoming the next IGP.

DIG Silva had shown him the house of ASP Prasanna Alwis of the Colombo Crimes Division and told Namal that ASP Alwis had to be ‘destroyed’ somehow which meant physical elimination.

When the riots broke out in Teldeniya, DIG Silva had called Namal and told him that Amith Weerasinghe of the Mahason Balakaya had to be arrested and that since the government was in hot water over the incident, he will be able to curry favour with the Prime Minister by doing so. Namal Kumara said that indiscriminate arrests of people on the street were carried out by the police. (This was a point made by this columnist as well at the time.) DIG Silva had also spoken against the STF and said that the PM’s mind should be poisoned against the STF so that it is disbanded and the power of the TID will be enhanced.

DIG Silva had also said that he wants to be the head of the SIS, the State Intelligence Service. With regard to the 2020 Presidential election, Namal says that Nalaka Silva had said that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Maithripala Sirisena, the possible contenders for the Presidency should be eliminated in the East in a way that the blame will fall on one Pushparaj. DIG Silva had said that the actual hit will be carried out by underworld kingpin, Makandure Madush, who had an axe to grind against both Gotabhaya as well as Sirisena. DIG Silva had revealed that Madush had been brought to the TID for an investigation and that he had struck up an acquaintance with him at that time. Silva had said that by involving Pushparaj, the case would be directed to the TID where he will be able to ‘balance’ the whole thing.

Namal Kumara also stated that there was no point in telling anything to the IGP about Nalaka Silva because they were like father and son.

Despite being an anti-drug proliferation activist, Nalaka Kumara seems to have a lot of contacts with various people. He had contacts with various figures in the Tamil diaspora including a person called Thushara Peiris in France who was making a film called ‘Prabhakaran’.

This Thushara had tried to motivate him to launch attacks on Muslims in the East so as to create a Tamil-Muslim and Sinhala Mulsim issue in the Eastern Province.

That in a nutshell is what Namal Kumara told the Divaina. It is very clear that it was not just Namal Kumara who had maintained contacts with DIG Nalaka Silva but also members of Sinhala extremist organizations. They all seem to be having recorded conversations with DIG Nalaka Silva. Beyond any doubt the revelations made by Namal Kumara have to be investigated. A senior police officer in the TID of all places is alleged to have been trying to get an underworld kingpin to carry out assasinations that would be in Pottu Amman’s league.