President gifts million buck reward to T 56 toting sarge
On September 29th, Police Sergeant Sanath Gunawardena attached to the Thebuwana Police stopped a lorry carrying sand and arrested the driver. According to him, the lorry driver had no permit to transport river mined sand. At the police station, however, the OIC released the driver and claimed that he did indeed have the necessary permit and, therefore, the police had no right to arrest the driver.
Four days later on October 3, Sergeant Gunawardena, disgruntled and frustrated over what he considered to be an injustice and, suspecting foul play, decided to take the law literally to his own hands. He grabbed a T56 from the police armoury and staged a protest on the Thebuwana street and even fired a few shots to the air to express with gun power he pent up outrage.
Thebuwana police efforts to coax him to surrender his weapon and the STF had to be called in. They managed to wrestle the gun and the street drama ended. Sergeant Gunawardena was arrested and produced before court and remanded and released on surety bail. The court date was fixed for December 11. He was also interdicted pending an inquiry as to his allegations and his conduct.
This Tuesday the 16th President Sirisena invited him and his family to the Presidential Secretariat and hand over a cheque of a million bucks to his wife. The following day the Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundera reinstated Gunawardena.
All this whilst there is an inquiry pending against him, not to forget a criminal case filed against him and December 11th set as the date for his appearance in court.
Oh, lucky man. The divine intervention of the President seems to have changed his fortunes overnight. Not only has he got his job back but he is also a million bucks richer for firing shots in the air with his T56 weapon on a public street after flouting orders from his superior officers.
The President may have been moved by the man’s genuine sense of justice. But isn’t there another dimension to it all. That discipline in the Tri Forces and the Police is the touchstone in the chain of command. Every serving man in the forces is not only expected but is required as a must to obey without question the order of his superior officer, be it right or be it wrong. It’s not for him to debate within him philosophical issues involved in the order. Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ is one literary example – ‘for theirs not to question why, theirs but to do or die’.
Rewarding insubordination in the ranks may well lead civil society down the slippery slope to anarchy.