SUNDAY PUNCH 2
Why were UPFA's Dilan and Gamman hell bent on keeping evidence buried?
Why on earth was UPFA's national list candidate Dilan Perera so incensed over the body of 28 year old former Thomian ruggerite Wasim Thajudeen being exhumed by the police on a court order to help them to investigate further and determine whether his tragic death was an accident as it was made out to be or whether it was murder in the first degree as it had been long suspected for the last three years?
What in heaven's name moved him to take up arms against the Government and, short of issuing a fatwa, inveigh against them purportedly on behalf of not only the Muslims but also on behalf of the victim's family for desecrating the grave of a Muslim.
At a news conference held last Saturday at the SLFP headquarters he declared, "This is being done against the wishes of the family members. They are crying and imploring the government not to do this. They say it is against their religion. They say that it is an act of 'haram'. They say, 'Don't exhume the body, we have no suspicions.'
Mr. Perera is no longer seeking his Badulla voters' mandate again having lost his own Hali-ela electorate for the UPFA twice, once in last year's Uva provincial elections and the other in this year's presidential election. It was only due to his grovelling loyalty to his demi god Mahinda Rajapaksa that he earned the dubious honour of been included in the UPFA National List: the last resort of all politicians who have lost the confidence of their voters and fight shy of braving the hustings for the humiliation defeat will bring.
Thus, unlike his other UPFA colleagues who are presently busy canvassing in their electorates, it seems that Dilan Perera has a lot of free time on his hands and can well afford to spend the long drawn hours of his languid day protesting against supposed violations of Islamic laws.
In the circumstances it may have been reasonable for one to have assumed that he had volunteered to canvass the victim's family cause and espouse their grief and protest. Alas, for his bad luck and ill timing, his supposed right to speak on behalf of the family of the victim and the Muslim community as a whole and his interpretation of the Islamic laws, together with his motives has been called into question.
Thus the mystery as to whose interest he truly represented and why he nearly tore his hair out at Saturday's conference over raising the victim's remains from the grave deepened further when the victim's family lawyer Mr Misbah Saththar issued a statement to the press on behalf of the family which was published on Monday in which he stated, "The exhumation of Wasim Thajudeen's body is done in accordance with the appeal made by the family to see justice to his untimely demise."
Apart from putting paid to Dilan Perera's claim that the family were crying over police exhuming the body and were satisfied there was no suspicion as to Thajudeen's death, the family lawyer challenged him to reveal in whose interest he was making such claims.
The family lawyer Saththar declared: "I, as the person who looks after the interest of the family and appearing in the case on behalf of the family, would like to question Honourable Mr. Dilan Perera as to whose interest he is looking after, is it the Muslim community or anyone else, when he makes a statement saying that 'Thajudeen's family does not want to relive their grief as exhuming the body of a Muslim is an act of haram'. I would also want to question him, as to whom he spoke to, in order to make statements on behalf of the family or Islamic laws. The family is very much interested in seeing justice meted out to Wasim's tragic death."
On Tuesday came another extraordinary announcement from another UPFA Rajapaksa die hard Udaya Gammanpila who declared with certainty that the death was definitely an accident. What had gripped UPFA provincial councillor Gammanpila to don the 'Pink Panther' trench coat of Inspector Cloueseau over his purer than white national garb and boldly assert that Thajudeen's death was an accident and not a murder also remains a mystery.
Addressing a media conference, he claimed he had two eyewitnesses whose evidence could prove that Thajudeen's death was an accident. One witness, Gammanpila said, was a person who was travelling to the Bandaranaike International Airport that night who had seen the accident while the other was one who had seen the flames when he had come out to see what had caused a loud sound. He had then called 911.
Apparently the airport bound witness had been in a mighty rush to catch his plane that he had not bothered even to stop and inquire whether any assistance was required but had sped by in the dark of night having only had a mere fleeting glimpse of a car that had crashed into a wall. But the question is was the car purposely crashed? That is what the CID officers are trying to determine especially after Thajudeen's wallet had been found 150 yards away from the crash. That is why it was necessary to exhume the body to see whether the injuries sustained were the result of a crash or not.
As for the other witness, the 911 caller, he had only seen the flames after coming out to the road to determine the cause of the sound. No one is disputing that the car burnt. The question the CID detectives are trying to determine is whether it was purposely set aflame.
It is also surprising that Gammanpila, the double-crosser who betrayed Mahinda and joined Maithripala in December last year and then grovelled back to Mahinda's feet within a week saying he had had an acute attack of conscience, should now, unasked, play Sherlock Holmes and deduce in the most elementary way, that Thajudeen's death was an accident and not murder.
The UPFA claim has been that the UNP has raised the issue of Thajudeen's death at this time due to political reasons. But given the fact that mystery had shrouded his death and had remained unprobed for nearly three years under Rajapaksa rule, is it not far better that whatever the reasons maybe, it is probed even at this late hour than never?
Had it been satisfactorily investigated by the Rajapaksa regime then, there would be no probe necessary to be done now for the UNP to make political capital of as it is claimed. Thus the Rajapaksa dominated UPFA has none to blame but themselves now. And, even if the UNP had instigated the investigation, it is the courts that ordered the exhumation.
As much as the circumstances surrounding Thajudeen's death are intriguing and people wait for police findings, isn't it also baffling as to whose interest Dilan Perera was representing when he, against the victim's family's wishes, protested against the exhumation preferring instead the evidence to stay buried and the mystery of Thajudeen's death labelled and sealed as an accident as it had remained for the last three years ever since the old Thomian's untimely end around midnight on May 17th 2012.
As Thajudeen's sister Aisha Thajudeen said on Friday, "It took one and half years for the Judicial Medical Officer to discover the cause of death, and additional one and half years for the Government Analyst to deliver his report. Then there was no support for us. When it came up in January the case became very active, and I now have confidence in the CID. In the current political environment, and with the CID taking up the case, we know that something is going to come right."
Justice delayed may not necessarily be justice denied. For the deceased Thajudeen and his grieving family, it will certainly be justice at last.