Emil Ranjan, Rangajeeva to be grilled on witness statements

By Ashanthi Warunasuriya

 

Commissioner of Prisons in charge of rehabilitation, Emil Ranjan Lamahewa and Inspector of the Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB), Neomal Rangajeeva are to be grilled over witness statements made accusing them of being involved in the killing of 27 inmates of the Welikada prison in 2012.

Eyewitnesses had revealed earlier, as was reported in The Sunday Leader last September, that Emil Ranjan and Neomal Rangajeeva were involved in the killings.

Emil Ranjan Lamahewa was arrested last week by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in connection to the Welikada prison riot.

Inspector of the Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB), Neomal Rangajeeva was also arrested over the deaths of the inmates.

Emil Ranjan and the inspector were remanded till April 10.

The riot in 2012 left 27 inmates dead and several injured. The riot broke out during a search for illegal arms.

The Government had appointed a committee to investigate the riot and a report was compiled on the incident.

Hewadalugodage Sahan Sri, an eyewitness to the incident who has since fled the country, had revealed to The Sunday Leader last September what he saw. He had been arrested in 2007 under the Terrorism Prevention Act and had served eight years behind bars and was eventually released being cleared of all charges.

Speaking to the newspaper last week Sahan Sri said that it took three years for the new Government to arrest the key suspects.

However, he said that those who gave the orders to kill the inmates must also be arrested.

Sahan Sri said that when the security forces were trying to enter the prison premises carrying their weapons at the time of the incident, the guard at the gate had protested. The security guard had in fact noted this incident in his log book. However, upon being notified that they were there on the orders of high ranking Defence Ministry officials, no one could oppose their actions beyond that.

Armed security forces entered the prison premises and with the assistance of the Prison Police, they first headed to the L ward where the prisoners were being housed. They had put plastic handcuffs on the 400 prisoners there, sent them out of the ward and commenced a search operation claiming to be looking for mobile phones and drugs.

From there they went to the Chapel ward. In fact the security forces had searched the prisoners’ belongings in a manner that most of those belongings could not be used again.

From there they headed to the A ward, which is one of the four wards where special prisoners were being housed. When they were trying to put the plastic handcuffs on the prisoners, they had protested. The argument turned violent and the security forces had assaulted several of the prisoners. At that point a police intelligence officer attacked a prisoner on death row named Malan. Eventually he was among the 27 prisoners that were killed that day.

The prisoners in B3, CB, D3 wards of the Chapel building, which housed special prisoners, had protested against the brutal manner in which the security forces had attacked their fellow prison mates.

Then the security officers had put the prisoners of ward AB back in, locked their doors and fired tear gas to wards AB and several other wards. The prisoners of the lower floor of the Chapel ward had screamed at the top of their voices, demanding that the doors be opened.

Seeing the manner in which the security forces were behaving, even the prisoners on kitchen duty and other office work and light duties such as sweeping, etc., had begun hooting and attacking the security forces personnel with rocks and stones. Prisoners of the Bingo ward had broken the locks in their section and come towards the Chapel ward to assist their fellow prisoners. The prisoners were so distraught at the manner in which the security forces were attacking them that they had even taken the bricks that were brought for building construction and began fiercely attacking the security forces.

The security forces had retreated and then began attacking the prisoners with tear gas from outside, for about 1 ½ hours. The Prisons Commissioner had tried to get the security forces to stop the tear gas attack but had failed and he too had eventually fainted in his office. Many of the prisoners too had taken ill due to the relentless tear gas attacks by the security forces. At that moment when the Prison Commissioner did not know what to do, Sahan Sri, and several other prisoners had carried the Commissioner and put him on a table in the kitchen and allowed him to talk to the prisoners.

Speaking to the prisoners, the Commissioner had promised justice and urged the prisoners to assist in bringing this situation under control. With the help of the prisoners, the Commissioner had managed to get out of the prison but even after 20 minutes after he went out, the firing of tear gas had not stopped. Some of the prisoners had climbed to the roof of the prisons and had protested against the tear gas attack while another group of prisoners had made holes in the weapons store through the visiting area and obtained several weapons, but they did not have the ammunition for the weapons. Hence the prisoners had obtained T56 rifles and repeater rifles.

By 8pm on the day of the incident, the prisoners started shooting into the air with the weapons they had acquired and beyond the prison gates. Some of the other prisoners had also broken into the prison dispensary and helped themselves to the various drugs stored there, which were addicts. They were in prison for drug related cases and considering their backgrounds and level of education and family backgrounds, one cannot expect them to have behaved any better.

The prisoners had also used their mobiles to notify the BBC and others outside of what was going on inside the prison, perhaps with the intention of safeguarding their fellow prisoners who were under attack and also the political prisoners.

By 10pm, on the promise that no security forces member enters the prison premises, and having notified the Commissioner by phone what these prisoners demands were, they had taken measures to hand over their weapons to the Chief Jailor named Kuda Bandara.

By 11pm all the weapons in the possession of the prisoners were handed over to Kuda Bandara.

After the assurance of the Commissioner that the prisoners’ safety would be guaranteed, the prisoners once again got wind that the security forces were planning on raiding the prison premises later that night. Then by 11.45 another barrage of bullets were fired into the prison by the security forces demanding that the prisoners hand over any remnant weapons. However, by this time the prisoners did not have any weapons in their possession as they had handed everything to Chief Jailor Kuda Bandara. When the military and the STF barged into the prison, Kuda Bandara had tried to safeguard the prisoners. Sahan noted that it was then that the most unfortunate incidents began to take place.

November 10, 2002 was a tragic day for Welikada and 2am was the cursed hour that determined the fate of many prisoners and created so much carnage and trauma. Around 2am on that fateful day, the firing ceased and military personnel, prison guards and plain clothes officers entered the prison and they were calling out the names of certain prisoners and gathering them one by one. First they called out, “where is the fellow who killed the Buddhist monk in Kotte?” Then one of the inmates said he was in the M ward. Then the names, Potta Naufer, Pinwatte Ukkuwa, Ratmalane Rohana, Kapila, a Major involved in the killing of Parami Kulatunge and they had asked who else is in prison in connection with LTTE cases. Sahan Sri and several others had known that the security forces were assaulting and dragging away Kapila and Malan, from their voices, as they could not see in the dark. They were begging and screaming, pleading that the security personnel do not assault them. Then they had heard the sound of gun shots from the direction of the M ward. They then got word that Manjula, Ponna Kapila and Malan had been shot and killed. The prisoners of the M ward had told them the next day that the prisoners who were shot by the security personnel had been moaning and groaning for a long time asking for water, prior to their horrible death.

After the dreadful incident, the CID had come and taken statements from the inmates and when Sahan was giving his statement, one of the officers had told him, if he ever wanted to go home, he should corporate with them and give his statement according to their requirement.