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Facts are stubborn by Anton Gunasekera

Hardly a day passes, without some anti-social news of an alleged act of crime or corruption, bureaucratic highandedness or neglect of duty and/or indifference on the part of some law enforcement officer, by way of a negative response to genuine public complaints pertaining to the open violation of a citizen's civic rights.

Instead of public interest in helping law enforcement to crack down on crime, there seemingly is increased public apathy, which allegedly is the result of recently passed out, young Police personnel showing a lack of competence in recording fair and just statements from aggrieved parties. Times were, during British colonial rule and during the immediate post-independence era, when civic conscious elder citizens in our cities, towns and villages, took the lead in thwarting prospective acts of violence and misdemeanours among erring youth within their fold. The Police officer usually arrived on the scene in a rickety bicycle, long after peace had been restored.

But the unanticipated post - 71 violence has been on the rise over the past three decades, mostly a proliferation in the guise of terrorism. That put paid to any further intervention by elders in our communities, for fear of dire consequences to life and property from unruly youth who paid scant respect to law and order.

The sordid events that led to islandwide conflicts between terrorist youth and the Police and Armed Services in July, 1989, are now just fragments in our nation's tainted history. Even as of today, every peace-loving citizen waits in anxiety for the dawn of that day sooner than later when the ongoing North-East peace process would reach its logical culmination towards the restoration of ethnic amity which prevailed in the not so distant past.

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On this our maiden 'Comment' relating to the continuing spate of violence and its concomitant social evils, the 'Ceylon Daily News', now in its 75th year of publication, is dedicated to a re-harnessing of the civic consciousness and social responsibility of its many and varied discerning readers in a bid to motivate them to lend a helping hand to duty - conscious, honest an fearless law enforcement officers who are bent on preventing anti-social and inhuman acts, according to the letter and spirit of the law - not unmindful, though, of the unwarranted and detestable political interference, which in itself is a helping hand to crime.

IGP Anandarajah and his senior most officials have honestly admitted time and time again, that the Police Force has its quota of blacksheep who are secretively in connivance with gun-totting law breakers. But short of provable evidence, such offenders in the Force escape unscathed. Public co-operation with the Police, through timely information provided to one or another in the Police top brass of the area, they contend, would inevitably lead to the speedier detection of such unholy alliances.

A near four and half decades ago (commencing June, 1960), we wrote a weekly column in the 'Daily News' which was titled "health and Humbug" by Scalpel. As the then medical correspondent attached to the CDN Editorial Staff, we regularly exposed the gross violation of the 'Hippocratic Oath' by certain unscrupulous and self-aggrandized members of the then medical profession, more particulary by some of the physicians and surgeons attached to the 'Colombo Group of Hospitals' which were also teaching institutions.

Chronically-ill warded and outdoor patients, hardly attended to, were at the mercy of young House Officers and carefree paramedical staff, while the former were 'on duty' at the few private hospitals and nursing homes in the Colombo metropolis, where beds were occupied by the affluent and elite 'ill', including subsequent detections by the Police of certain racketeers in the 'Wanted' list.

While the Health Ministry and the Health Department initiated inquiries as a sequel to sporadic CDN Editorial comments, the allegedly guilty offenders went scot-free, only because "these offenders' were giving free consultations and medical treatment to relatives and friends of some key health administrators. But CDN reader response was so encouraging that the Ministry's flying squads caught a few of the offenders red handed and were given due punishment? - temporary transfers to appease the investigating news hounds. It is never too late for our civic-conscious readers to keep the CDN informed of impending criminal acts, nefarious, anti-social activities and seeming irregularities in the public sector. It is up to responsible journalism to pursue them for public exposure.

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Commissioned (Gazetted) officers in the Police Force and the Armed Services who are either retired or about to, usually spend their post-service life with their families, in their ancestral homes in various parts of the country. However, their entitlement to special privileges, not available to the ordinary citizen, stays on, even in retirement, in recognition of the yeoman services they have rendered to the State and to the public while they were in service.

A fortnight ago, a young SI attached to a Colombo suburbs Police Station had nabbed a retired Gazetted Army officer on a charge of driving under the influence of liquor, after he had tested positive to the Police 'blow-balloon' once he an his companion, the latter less inebriated, parked their vehicle and walked into the station, the SI had ordered the Sergeant to lock up the allegedly intoxicated retiree in one of the cells which was already holding other suspects.

The retired officer had strongly objected by submitting that * he had not committed such a grievous crime so as to warrant such harsh treatment, * his statement to the effect that he was returning with his friend after a social get together, had not been recorded and, more importantly * he cannot be locked up by virtue of his position as a retired gazetted officer - proof of which he had produced.

Though, after the twosome's heated argument, a 'Good Samaritan' officer, who was senior to the SI had intervened and released the still irate elder, the paramount question is whether the position taken up by the retired gazetted officer is correct, or whether the SI had acted in an arbitrary manner.

The Police High Command has a bounden duty to circularise its islandwide network of stations on how the law applies thereto, since such retired personnel are not prohibited by law from getting into high spirits or driving along roads here, there or anywhere.

What action would the SI have taken if, for instance, the victim concerned was a younger Army officer in boisterous tone and clad in his spick and span uniform? Your guess is as good as ours....

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