Photo of alleged arsonist released

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has released a photo and a portrait of the person who allegedly set fire to the Army bus in Mirihana, near President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s private residence, on March 31, and the suspect is yet to be identified.

The police arrested 45 persons who engaged in the protest in Mirihana, Nugegoda, initially. Later they arrested some more persons using the Emergency Law imposed by the President through an Extraordinary Gazette right after the protest.

During the incident, two police and army buses, a jeep, a three-wheeler, and two motorcycles were damaged. Later, the suspects were released on bail after being produced before the Nugegoda Magistrate’s Court.

The President's Counsel representing the suspects argued for the right to freedom of expression.

Saliya Peiris PC, President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), Anura Meddegoda PC, Kalinga Indatissa PC, Sarath Jayamanne PC, Anuja Premaratne PC, Maithri Gunaratne PC, Sudath Wickramaratne, a Senior Lawyer, are the counsel who made submissions on behalf of the suspects.

The Police argued that some incidents of mischief had taken place during the incident. Sarath Jayamanne PC, a former Senior Additional Solicitor General, argued that under Article 14 of the Constitution everyone had the right to protest.

“Now in this case, what is the cause for the protest? The cause of the protest is the ongoing acute shortage of essentials and the peoples’ representatives have not addressed these issues for a long time,” he said.

“People of this country do not have any other weapon; the only weapon they have is to protest, and that is why they started a silent protest, and then they might have used some words, but that is a democratic right according to the constitution,” PC Jayamanne said.

“When people use their democratic right, the Police can't go and arrest them,” he said.

However, in the latter part of the protest there were some incidents of mischief being reported, and if some person had been involved in mischief, the Police could have arrested them then and there.

“Because we saw in several videos and pictures the person who was involved in setting fire to the bus and he was on the road. We are asking why he was not arrested then and there?” PC Jayamanne questioned.

There were enough Police officers to take action against that incident. Therefore, there is a serious concern whether this particular incident was a staged one, and therefore blame can be put onto the public.

Journalists were also assaulted when they identified as freelance journalists. Most of them were brutally assaulted.

Making a critical submission at the Courts, Mr. Jayamanne pointed out when suspects are produced before the Magistrate it is incumbent upon the Police in their B reports to refer to the synopsis of the evidence against each and every suspect.

That is the requirement under Section 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure Act. “Now in this instance, the Police have filed a B report, and in that report there was no evidence whatsoever with regard to the evidence against the suspects,” he pointed out.

Saliya Peiris, PC, mainly focused on the fact that in a democratic country, everyone has the right to protest against any atrocity committed against the general public.