Embilipitiya police assault: SC seeks medical reports

By S. S. Selvanayagam

The Supreme Court yesterday (5) directed the Registrar of the Court to obtain from the Embilipitiya Hospital the medical reports and JMO reports pertaining to the victims of the alleged Embilipitiya assault.

The Bench comprising Chief Justice K. Sripavan and Justice Anil Gooneratne fixed three petitions filed by the victim along with the petition filed by the widow of the Embilipitiya young man who sustained fatal injuries to be taken up on 7 July.

Widow of the Embilipitiya victim, by the name of Sumith Prasanna Jayawardhana(29), who sustained fatal injuries as a result of an alleged police offensive filed a fundamental right violation petition seeking Rs 10 million as compensation for her husband’s death.

The other petitioners are K. P. G. Lasantha, P. G. Wasantha and the owner of the premises where the alleged incident took place D. P. Mendis.

Petitioner Widow Shashika Nishamani Munasinghe (2) in her petition cited Assistant Police Superintendent D. W. C. Dharmarathna, Chief Inspector S. R. Jinendra Dias, Sergeant Jinadasa, Constables Shantha, Saranga, Jayalath and Bandusena, Inspector Rjapaksha, the IGP and the Attorney General as Respondents.

 Lakshan Dias with Priyalal Sirisena appeared for the Petitioners.

 Petitioner Shashika Nishamani Munasinghe, pregnant and a mother of an eight-year-old daughter, in her petition states that on 1 April, a puberty ceremony was held at the premises of one D. P. Mendis opposite her residence, where a revelry was held from morning till night. 

Elaborating on the incident, the petitoiner states that around 11.00 p.m in the night, she who was at her home heard a commotion from the said premises. She crossed the road and saw a police officer on the road taking photos or video recording her husband who was blaming them for their alleged misbehavior, she says.

 Thereafter she managed to take her husband to the dining place and arranged for him to have his dinner there, she adds. When her husband was having dinner, a few police personnel including ASP Dharmarathna and Chief Inspector Jinendra Dias came there and the ASP scolded her husband in foul language and pushed her away, she states. 

The petitioner complains that the ASP and other police personnel started assaulting her and her husband and dragged her husband on the floor to the second floor and she went upstairs to check on her husband.

 She further states that she overheard her husband crying begging the police personnel not to hit him and she heard the sound of a glass being cracked prompting her to see what was going on. Despite heavy resistance from her husband, Munasinghe charges, the ASP allegedly pushed her husband off.

The petitioner goes on to say that despite all the efforts of the doctors at the hospital, her husband passed away and blames that there was no reason for the death of her husband but the fatal injuries he sustained due to the assault by the ASP and other police personnel.

 Munasinghe seeks the court to declare that her husband’s fundamental rights to the freedom from torture, right to equality and the right that no person shall be punished with death or imprisonment, except by order of a competent court, have been violated by the Respondent police personnel.