Editorial
The death of a man in police custody is not an administrative mishap to be explained away by a routine statement from the Police Media Division. It is a matter of the gravest public importance, demanding immediate independent scrutiny, full disclosure of the evidence and accountability under the law. The recent deaths of Ishara Harshakumara in Homagama and an unidentified 31-year-old man following his apprehension by residents and subsequent transfer to Kobeigane Police raise precisely these questions. In Homagama, Harshakumara’s family alleged that he had been assaulted while detained. A friend publicly described serious injuries, including fractured ribs and a neck bone, brain swelling and blood in the chest. These details must be verified against the official post-mortem findings, but they cannot responsibly be dismissed. The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has opened an investigation, recorded statements from relatives and expressed concern that officers involved appear not to have complied with its custodial safeguards. In Kobeigane, investigators are examining whether the fatal injuries resulted from police action or an assault by residents before the man was handed over. Four suspects have reportedly been arrested. These cases are not interchangeable, and neither should be prejudged. What unites them is the urgent requirement to establish how two men came to die after coming into contact with law enforcement and whether every person responsible for their safety fulfilled that obligation.
The legal position is unequivocal. Article 11 of Sri Lanka’s Constitution prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Article 13 protects against arbitrary arrest and detention and requires that restrictions on liberty conform to law. Sri Lanka has also ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture and enacted the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Act No. 22 of 1994, under which torture is a criminal offence. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights protects the right to life, prohibits torture and guarantees humane treatment for persons deprived of liberty. These are not decorative commitments for international conferences. They impose real obligations on the State and its officers. A person arrested on suspicion of possessing narcotics, accused of theft or detained under a court warrant does not surrender the right to bodily integrity. Even a person suspected of a serious crime remains entitled to lawful treatment. Police officers possess authority to arrest, search, question and detain only within the limits established by law. They possess no authority to inflict punishment, extract confessions through violence or subject detainees to unofficial physical coercion. Where credible evidence indicates that torture or unlawful violence has occurred, the authorities must investigate promptly, independently and effectively, and prosecute where the evidence warrants it.
The official record makes complacency indefensible. The Human Rights Commission recorded 49 reported deaths in police custody and 30 deaths following confrontations with police between January 2020 and 31 March 2025. In May 2025, it issued detailed guidelines intended to prevent custodial and encounter deaths, covering arrest, detention, interrogation, the use of force and related safeguards. The Inspector General of Police was informed of those guidelines, which were subsequently circulated within the Police Department. Yet the Commission’s preliminary findings in the Homagama case indicate that the officers concerned appear not to have acted in accordance with the prescribed safeguards. This is a profoundly serious institutional concern. Guidelines that are circulated but ignored offer no protection to a person locked inside a cell. Training that does not change conduct is an administrative exercise, not reform. Suspension after a death is not accountability, and an internal inquiry is not an adequate substitute for an independent criminal investigation where police officers themselves may be implicated. The public is entitled to know whether custody registers, station records, medical assessments, CCTV footage, witness statements and other evidence have been secured, and whether investigators outside the chain of command are examining the case without interference.
The wider crisis becomes more disturbing when set against the recent judicial controversy involving IGP Priyantha Weerasuriya. On 22 October 2026, the Daily FT reported that Gampaha Magistrate Bandula Gunarathna had directed the forwarding of case files to the President of the Court of Appeal for consideration of contempt proceedings over alleged non-compliance with a court order. The order concerned a nationwide circular instructing police officers not to institute baseless cases against innocent people. According to the report, the court had awarded compensation in a case involving allegedly baseless drug charges and considered the limited instructions subsequently presented by police inadequate to satisfy the nationwide direction. This was a referral for consideration of contempt proceedings, not a conviction for contempt, and that distinction must be maintained. Nevertheless, the substance of the dispute raises an issue that reaches beyond one officer. If a court orders a national safeguard against baseless prosecution, compliance cannot be replaced by a narrower departmental instruction. A police service that demands unquestioning obedience from the public must itself demonstrate scrupulous obedience to judicial authority. The rule of law cannot function as a one-way command imposed on citizens while public officers treat court orders as negotiable administrative preferences.
The historical record of the Ceylon Police offers no justification for present failures. A. C. Dep’s A History of the Ceylon Police, published in 1938, documented the institution’s development and included accounts of misconduct and the responses of authorities to abuses of police power. A historical extract published by the Sunday Times in 1997 described an incident in which a reserve sergeant refused to take people into custody because they had committed no offence, despite pressure arising from a confrontation with military officers. The significance is not that the colonial police should be romanticised. Colonial policing had its own profound limitations. It is that the principle of refusing unlawful detention was recognised within the institution’s own history. Professional integrity requires an officer to distinguish lawful authority from pressure, prejudice and personal discretion. The contemporary Police Department should be judged by a considerably higher standard, one grounded in constitutional government, universal human rights and democratic accountability. Institutional pride is worthless if it becomes a shield against scrutiny.
Sri Lanka cannot restore public confidence through press statements, temporary suspensions and promises of further inquiries. It must establish an independent and effective mechanism for investigating deaths in custody, ensure the preservation of all evidence, disclose findings when legally permissible and bring charges where admissible evidence establishes criminal responsibility. The families of the dead must not be forced to become investigators, campaigners and public advocates merely to secure the basic protections the State was obliged to provide. Parliament, the courts, the Human Rights Commission and the Attorney General must ensure that allegations are tested through lawful procedures and that neither rank nor uniform confers immunity. The phrase “criminals in uniforms” must never become a substitute for evidence or a verdict pronounced before trial. But neither should the possibility of unfairly accusing an individual become an excuse for protecting an institution from legitimate criticism. When officers commit crimes, their status makes accountability more necessary, not less. A police service earns legitimacy through restraint, integrity and obedience to law. Until those standards are enforced consistently, every unexplained death in custody will remain an indictment of the State’s duty to protect those it has deprived of liberty.
