Sri Lankan police have ‘failed’ to arrest a suspect for allegedly assaulting a Tamil journalist in the North.
The alleged suspect assaulted Tamil journalist Subramaniyam Baskaran who exposed what he calls a financial scandal at an agrarian society in Killinochi district which has thousands of members.
After the scandal was exposed, two persons barged into the home of the journalist and attacked him.
Despite complaining to the Police, one of the suspects is still at large, while the second person has been released on bail by the local court.
Police accepted their carelessness in not arresting the second individual in the court.
On the day of Thai Pongal (January 15), the two suspects arrived at the home of the independent journalist in two motorcycles wearing helmets and entered his house breaking open the gates.
Subramaniyam Baskaran was attacked with the helmets, injuring him severely before escaping from there.
The journalist complained to the police who visited him at his house claiming those who attacked him were the son of the treasurer of the Iranaimadu Agrarian Society B. Kuraliniyan and the agricultural supervisor who is said to be in charge of the agricultural lands.
The identity of the alleged suspects could not be independently verified.
In his expose based on information gathered under the Right to Information Act, Subramaniyam Baskaran brought out the alleged huge financial scandal at the society.
According to him, based on the information obtained through the RTI, the total financial holding of the Iranaimadu Agraian Society is around Rs. 37 million and it has around 7000 members.
“However, the society has not been registered yet and funds collected from the members have not been deposited properly in the bank and the audit report has not been furnished to the Agriculture Development Department.”
Baskaran claims the fixed pay for the agrarian supervisor per day was Rs. 750 for his duty of sharing the water under the Iranaimadu Agrarian Society to the fields. But, the society paid Rs. 115,000 per month for nine months and this was exposed in November 2024 along with his friend, which was published by many media.
Adding further, Subramaniyan Baskaran says, the amount was paid without the knowledge of the members of the society and he believes the reason for attacking him was the expose he made about the ‘illegal payments’.
Despite evidence being handed over to the Kilinochchi police about the two people assaulting him at his house, the police arrested only the agrarian supervisor and produced him in the court on the 15th of January.
The Kilinochchi magistrate posted the next hearing of the case on the 2nd of July while ordering him to be released on bail.
When the journalist asked the Police as to why the second person who attacked him had not yet been arrested and only the other person was presented in court, they replied it was ‘due to carelessness while preparing the report and the error that occurred due to it.
However, the police informed him the second suspect would be arrested immediately and produced in the court soon.
But even after more than a week since the assault on the independent journalist took place, the second suspect has not been arrested and produced in court, Baskaran says.
In his expose of the alleged financial scandal, Baskaran notes that his report is based on certain documents obtained from the Agriculture Department and the respective department has not done a financial audit into the functioning of the said society.
“The expenditure has been done without proper authority and permission from any department as well no auditing was done for the income and expenditure”, he told local journalists.
Tamil journalists exposing corruption and human rights violations have come under constant attack with many cases yet to be solved and the alleged perpetrators brought to justice.
Global media watchdog RSF has ranked Sri Lanka very low in its press freedom index.
Leave a comment