Don't shield criminals

THE observations made at a ceremony in Kandy by Ven. Udugama Sri Buddharakkhita Mahanayake Thera of the Asgiriya Chapter of the Siam Maha Nikaya on the upsurge of crime and the need to expeditiously punish criminal elements as reported in our lead story yesterday should engage the serious attention of all thinking elements in the country.

This should be particularly so since the venerable prelate had lamented that this trend if not arrested would besmirch the good name of the country beyond redemption.

It was said at one time that it was possible for a comely maiden bedecked in the most expensive jewellery to walk from one end of Sri Lanka to the other unmolested.

Today this would sound the most cynical joke although there is no dearth of sermons and exhortations from politicians, religious leaders and other such custodians of public morals on how the people should conduct themselves in this 'Dhammadeepa."

The very fact that no less a personage than the Mahanayake Thera of Asgiriya should have spoken as he has done demonstrates the extent to which the nation's moral fibre has been eroded.

The reasons for this state of affairs are well known. Time was when criminal elements were confined to the underworld and the underbelly of society. However during the last three decades these criminals have moved from the underworld to centre stage.

The main reason for this was that some powerful politicians resorted to the help of such criminal elements to harass, suppress and finally even eliminate their political opponents. Not so any moons ago one such criminal, a rapist, was given a Presidential pardon and made the bodyguard of a then rising Cabinet Minister. IRCs became necessary adjuncts of ministerial security teams thus gaining them immunity from the law.

Gang warfare proliferated and the political patronage which such criminals enjoyed forged an unlovely nexus between the political and criminal underworlds.

An aspect of the problem to which the Asgiriya prelate has drawn attention is the slow pace of the judicial system. Delays in trying cases of serious crime and punishing their perpetrators seriously blunts the deterrent potential of such punishment and makes criminals feel that they can get away with anything.

Occasionally a scandal such as the Rita John rape and killing prods the conscience of the nation but in time we go back to our lotus-eating ways. The new Government has done well to instruct the Police to wage an all-out crusade against crime, drugs, illicit liquor and prostitution and while this has shown some results other outgrowths of this drive seem to suggest that some elements of the Police themselves might be in cahoots with the criminals.

It is therefore necessary that the Government at the highest levels should make it clear that the crusade will not be affected by the political or official patronage that some criminal elements might enjoy. The message should go out loud and clear to all politicians: Don't shield criminals.

The anti-crime drive therefore should not be allowed to lose its momentum. Some sharks should be netted in as a deterrent and the judicial system will have to be activated to bring the culprits to book expeditiously.

Only a startling breakthrough by the combined forces of the Police and the law can cut through the jungle of crime and carry the country back to the sun-lit highlands of a safe society.