By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO, Nov 30 1998 (IPS)

An enraged mob assaults the driver and sets fire to his van after he knocks down and kills a pregnant woman at a pedestrian crossing outside a maternity hospital in Buddhist majority Sri Lanka.

A woman is jailed for a day for throwing hot water on her brother-in-law who sexually abused her seven-year-old daughter, while the perpetrator is allowed bail for an offence that is normally non-bailable by law.

These are only two of the many instances of summary justice and crime reported recently island-wide, and in many cases, women and children are the main victims.

A helpless public are complaining of police inaction and demanding the imposition of the death penalty to deter criminals. But Justice Minister Prof Gamini Lakshman Peiris said last week that the government was planning “tougher penalties”.

Public appeals for the return to capital punishment, which is permitted under Sri Lanka’s criminal law but not enforced since the late 1970s, have been growing in the past few months with even a female minister and some police officials joining in support.

Reports suggest that some 15,000 army deserters, armed with stolen guns, are said to be involved in the bulk of crime, particularly contract killings. Attacks on women have risen along with the consumption of drugs and alcohol in Sri Lanka.

Last year 56,000 criminal cases – including 900 incidents of rape – were recorded by the police, but hundreds of cases go unreported by victims who fear reprisals from the perpetrators or believe that the police are simply not concerned.

In October, women activists, outraged by the brutal gang rape and murder of a newly-married Indian woman, Rita John, marched on the streets of Colombo to seek more protection for women, and quicker and harsher punishment for sex offenders.

Angry letters to the editor are pouring in from readers who support the death sentence for criminals. “Hang the rapists,” urged a reader, O.G. Jayasinghe, writing in the ‘Midweek Mirror’ newspaper of Nov. 25.

“The rape and murder of Rita was not isolated. Such heinous crimes are carried out openly throughout the country with impunity. The time is ripe for the state to seriously consider the reintroduction of the death sentence for rapists and murderers. Unless and until legislation is passed to carry out the death sentence, brutal crimes won’t be curtailed,” he said.

The letter is typical of the many appearing in local newspapers urging the government to enforce the death penalty. Local judges have always handed down death verdicts in Sri Lanka but the sentence is immediately commuted to life imprisonment.

Police say that they are severely understaffed and are compelled to focus attention on security concerns against separatist rebel attacks, and have little time for other anti- criminal work.

Deputy Inspector-General of Police, H.M. Kotakadeniya, who suggested that capital punishment was the only way to stop the crime rate from shooting up, told the ‘Island’ newspaper on Oct. 19 that the police force needs at least another 10,000 men to enforce law and order.

At a press conference in the capital city, Justice Minister Peiris while conceding that the crime graph is rising, said the government has no plans to restore the death penalty.

“There are two schools of thought on this issue – one for and the other against,” he told reporters last Thursday.

Peiris said that at the time criminal laws were enacted several decades ago, the scales of justice were tilted in favour of criminals because they were poor and vulnerable.

However, that has changed now with organised crime and criminals being more sophisticated, he said, adding that the government has provided a legislative framework in which tougher penalties against violent crime are prescribed and a minimum sentence, normally not the norm in law, is provided for.

Civil rights activists oppose the death penalty. In an interview, Suriya Wickremasinghe, a Colombo civil rights activist, said the death penalty is no answer to crime control.

“Nowhere in the world has it been shown to have any special impact in reducing crime. The death penalty is irreversible; miscarriages of justice (of which the poor and the disadvantaged are the most likely victims) can never be rectified,” she said.

Wickremasinghe said that a similar debate on capital punishment had divided the nation in 1995 when the crime wave had suddenly surged and the police were then too blamed for inaction.

Police lethargy has led to increasing numbers of instances of summary justice. Three of the four men, detained in the John case, were assaulted by other prisoners and hospitalised.

Says Prof. Harendra de Silva, a paediatrician and chairman of Sri Lanka’s Child Protection Authority, who privately backs calls for a return to capital punishment: “When the public realises that the police is not going to protect them, then they take the law into their own hands.”

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