Category: News

Seventeen-year-old Mukunthan (not real name) never believed that he would have secured second place in 1,500 metres race in his school sports meet until he gave it a try in March. He was a talented football player in the local club, but then, a blood test report found him to be positive for narcotics use.
He had been ‘clean’ for a couple of weeks since the death of his uncle, from whom he picked up the habit of taking drugs ranging from methamphetamine (‘ice’) to heroin. His uncle, a bus conductor on the Jaffna-Colombo route, had forced Mukunthan to stop taking injections. Days later, he was referred for rehabilitation by school authorities and then he was ejected from school, a prominent institution. He is now in rehab.

“When he came to us, he wanted to get rid of this habit to start afresh, fearing the fate of his uncle, but it disrupted his school and personal life very badly,” said the senior probation officer and Atchuvely Certified School Principal Sittambalam Puvanendran, who had interviewed Mukunthan.

This month alone, Mr Puvanendran came across at least 34 people who are either severely addicted to drugs or in the formative period, through legal action and referrals from other state and non-state institutions.

“In a way, we have failed to act on time because most of them told us that they have been taking drugs from six months to over a year. As a society, we failed to take preventive steps at the time,” Mr Puvanendran told the Sunday Times, while indicating that this week alone, he interviewed at least 10 youths seeking help.

On Wednesday, a mother handed over her 17-year-old son to Kopay police station, pleading for help to save him from drug addiction. After being produced in court the following day, he was sent for rehab at a certified school in Jaffna.

In at at least two dozen drug related incidents reported in Jaffna district alone, most offenders are in the age group of 17 years to 30 years.

The Jaffna Police division’s crime prevention branch has carried out several operations in recent weeks against drug peddlers and dealers who are targeting school children and youths.

Most drug addicts in the North are street level heroin users, next to methamphetamine and Kerala cannabis. Most addicts who use multiple drugs also take ‘ice’ and are less likely to seek help, according to probation officials.

Crimes have increased. Minor and grave incidents such as house breaking, robbery, theft of property, domestic abuse, and rape have increased sharply.

According to the Handbook of Drug Abuse Information of 2021, by the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB), total drugs-related arrests made by various agencies in 2016 was 314 and by 2020, the number had risen to 2,299. In 2020, 1,398 were taken into custody for heroin, while 839 were booked for Kerala cannabis.

So far, at least 12 have died in the Jaffna district alone from drug overdose and other drug related sudden illnesses, triggering alarm.

Over 300 individuals are in Jaffna Prisons for drug related offenses and according to local prison officials, more than two dozen are hardcore drug users who need urgent medical help.

The prices of drugs have also increased sharply. One milligramme of heroin is sold at Rs 50,000-Rs 60,000, while methamphetamine is around Rs 25,000-Rs 35,000. The wholesale price of Kerala cannabis (1.5 kg) bundle is Rs 450,000 while, a one time use small dose is Rs 750 to Rs 3000 depending on the quantity.

Addicted youths in the suburbs of the North are also peddling drugs. The default mechanism to calculate a milligramme of heroin is to use the back end of a match and wrap the drugs in tiny polythene bags and then stuff them all into a tin similar to a Vicks Cough Ointment container.

Peddlers will be on streets pretending to be having a casual chat while they will do the business with known people only. If they sense any activity by authorities, they simply dump the narcotics and leave.

If a drug peddler manages to sell at least 10 such mini packets, he would be able to get one free for his use, according to testimonials from victims who had sought help for drug addiction.

Following the sudden surge in drug use, a district level drug prevention committee was set up.

“The economic crisis coupled with poverty and unemployment along with impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic play a key role in the sudden spike in drug use. We have taken several remedial steps, but we need support from people,’’ the Jaffna District Secretary K. Mahesan told the Sunday Times. He suspects a mafia network of drug peddlers and smugglers.

There is little support from people when it comes to sharing information, the police said.

“This cannot be done by the police alone. All relevant stakeholders such as parents, schools, civil society and community leaders should work together. Parents have a huge role to play by monitoring the behaviour patterns of their children,” the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Jaffna Division A.L.U.N.P. Liyanage told the Sunday Times, while stressing that in recent arrests, most offenders have been either school-leavers or youths aged 18 to 30 years.

He said that except Kerala cannabis, other narcotics such as heroin, ‘ice’, are smuggled into the North from Colombo and elsewhere.

The national economic collapse has increased the jobless numbers and have pushed them into drugs and illicit alcohol. The unemployment rate in the Jaffna district has risen to 7.5% compared with the national rate of 5.1%, according to statistics from the District Secretariat.

“Many peddle drugs to earn quick money. It seems the locals just realised the grave situation now, but the police have been trying to tackle this for a long time,” a police officer of the crime unit of the Jaffna division said on condition of anonymity.

The National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB), the principal state agency that works closely with other state and non-state actors, is considering a new therapeutic community approach rather than rehabilitation.

“We noticed an unusual increase of drug use not only in Jaffna alone, but all over the island as well. In Jaffna, there has been a sharp increase near the town area compared with rural areas,” the newly-appointed chairman of NDDCB, Mr Shakya Nanayakkara told the Sunday Times.

Under the new therapeutic community approach, he explained that the aim is to empower the wife or mother of the drug-addicted people so they can return to a normal environment. Co-dependent can then be the co-therapist.

According to Article 34 of the Constitution of Sri Lanka, the President Ranil Wickremesinghe has granted amnesty to eight Tamil prisoners who by the powers assigned to the President in connection with granting amnesty to a person convicted by a court of Sri Lanka.

As a result of several discussions between Tamil MPs and the President on several occasions, steps were taken to release these prisoners. Before their release, a preliminary investigation had been carried out on them with the intervention of the Ministry of Defence on the instructions of the President. This decision has been reached after consulting the Minister of Justice and through him the Attorney General about the consent report.

Three of the Tamil prisoners who were pardoned were those accused of attempting to assassinate former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. Before proceeding with the process of releasing these prisoners, the President’s Secretary Mr Saman Ekanayake had sought the approval of former President Ms. Kumaratunga on the advice of the President, the relevant arrangements were made after obtaining her consent.

Accordingly, the four detainees with connections to the LTTE organization who were detained at the Colombo Magazine Prison were released after their sentence was reduced.

Two Tamil LTTE prisoners related to the organization are to be released after the cases filed by them in the Court of Appeal are withdrawn and two more Tamil prisoners are to be released soon under the presidential amnesty.

Three prisoners had been sentenced to 30 years in prison and had served 22 years, one prisoner who had been sentenced to 11 years and had served 14 years, one who has been sentenced to 10 years and had also served 14 years, two prisoners who were sentenced to five years but had served for14 years, were among those who received a presidential pardon. Another person who had been sentenced to 19 years in prison and had served 11 years of his sentence so far, was also among those who were pardoned.

The 25-year-old man who was killed in a car explosion in front of a temple in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu Sunday was questioned by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in 2019 for his ties to a radical network related to Zahran Hashim, the mastermind of the Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka.

The death of Jameesha Mubin caused by an LPG cylinder blast on board a car has now sparked an investigation into a possible terror plot angle. Tamil Nadu Director General of Police C. Sylendra Babu hasn’t ruled out a terror plot despite the fact that the police are keeping quiet because the evidence surrounding the blast is still hazy. According to Babu, they are looking into every possibility because the materials taken from his home “may have been meant for a future plan.”

Was the explosion an unsuccessful attack on the temple? “Except for the location where it occurred, before the temple, there is no proof to support this claim right now,” a police officer probing the case said.

When Mubin was driving his car on Sunday at around 4 am with the two LPG cylinders and other materials, including nails, it exploded. After the police traced more details about Mubin, it had raised suspicions because the explosion occurred near a temple. Later, authorities raided Mubin’s home and discovered explosive components like potassium nitrate, aluminium powder, sulphur, and charcoal.

Mubin was “examined” by NIA in 2019, according to a source. “He was one among the five people we had to examine in 2019 since he had been attending Bayan classes at a Coimbatore mosque of the Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath (TNTJ). These classes were closely related to Mohammed Azarudeen, who had direct contact with Zahran Hashim, the mastermind and the leader of the suicide bombers in Easter Sunday blasts in Sri Lanka,” the source said.

Azarudeen was arrested on multiple charges after the Sri Lankan’s serial blasts for his alleged role in recruiting many youth from Tamil Nadu and Kerala. He was reported to have played a significant role in the Islamic State group’s Tamil Nadu division.

A CCTV footage retrieved from a building near Mubin’s house, had visuals from Saturday night. The video shows four men, reportedly Mubin too among them, lugging a large object out of his Ukkadam house. It was captured on camera at 11.25 pm. While the police are now looking for the three other people seen in the footage, investigators assume that the bulky object carried by the four of them, wrapped in a white bag, was a gas cylinder that exploded. One of the two LPG cylinders in the car is thought to have caused the explosion on Sunday morning.

According to an investigator with the Tamil Nadu Police, Mubin has never had a case filed against him except for an NIA investigation into his involvement in TNTJ prayer meets. “After the explosion, we gathered CCTV footage to identify the car’s origin, which led to his home and the confiscation of things including black powder, potassium nitrate, and matchboxes. Although Mubin was married, he and his wife, deaf and dumb, lived apart. Seven people who had contact with Mubin in the recent days by phone and in person are being questioned now,” added the investigator.

The body of Mubin, which was collected from the scene, was unrecognisable, and the car still had one unexploded commercial cylinder weighing 35 kg.

While six teams are working to find additional information about Mubin, including people who met him at his home, locations he visited in the recent past, and his social media activities, the Tamil Nadu Police are being cautious when attributing a terror plot.

After BJP state President K Annamalai tweeted Sunday night that the Coimbatore cylinder blast is no longer a “cylinder blast,” the incident also takes on a political colour.

“It’s a clear cut terror act with ISIS links. Will Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu come out in the open and accept this? Tamil Nadu government is hiding the info for 12 hours now. Is this not a clear failure of the state intelligence machinery and DMK government?” Annamalai asked.

The Indian Express

The United States reiterates that it is committed to ensuring respect for human rights.

The Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Colombo Doug Sonnek engaged in his first official visit to the Northern Province.

The US Embassy said during Sonnek’s visit he met with Tamil and Muslim civil society leaders.

The parties exchanged views and discussed the effects of the ongoing economic crisis in Sri Lanka.

They also exchanged views and ideas on creating a more inclusive society.

While there are talks regarding the removal of MPs with dual citizenship following the passage of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, Parliament and the Election Commission (EC) have stated that any decision regarding such MPs should be taken through a judicial process as the matter is beyond their scope.

Speaking to The Morning, EC Chairman and Attorney-at-Law Nimal G. Punchihewa said: “The matter of dual citizens functioning as MPs is beyond the scope of the EC. Having dual citizenship is classified as a disqualification to become a MP, but the EC does not have the power to remove those who are disqualified. They can only be removed through a judicial process. When it comes to the EC, even if we know that an individual is a dual citizen and is handing over nominations for an election, we cannot reject that nomination under the existing laws.”

For instance, he said, although it was known that then-MP and incumbent State Minister Geetha Kumarasinghe was holding dual citizenship, the EC had not rejected her nomination some time ago, and that she had contested the General Election and even entered Parliament. He said that it was through a legal proceeding that her MP position was subsequently abolished. He said that it is clear through the said incident that the EC does not have the power to act in such matters involving dual citizens.

“New legislation should be introduced to enable the EC to reject nominations of dual citizens. Even if such legislation is introduced, it is difficult to know whether someone is a dual citizen unless they declare it themselves. This is because no country reveals personal information about a citizen. With the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, it should also be looked into whether holding dual citizenship was a disqualification to become an MP at the time of the incumbent MPs’ appointment. All these matters are beyond the EC’s scope,” said Punchihewa.

Meanwhile, when contacted by The Morning, Parliament Assistant Secretary General (Legislative Services) K.A.T.K. Jayathilake said that Parliament is not in possession of information with regard to the MPs’ citizenship. He said that when the EC issued relevant gazette notifications declaring that a person has been elected an MP through an election or the National List, the Parliament accepts such persons as MPs.

“We don’t have any data on the matter of dual citizenship. We usually consider the gazette notification that is issued and then sent to us by the EC after the General Election. It stated that this particular person has become a MP from this electorate, or through a certain political party’s National List. After taking oaths, such persons who have been declared as MPs by the EC can function as MPs. If there is a need to make a decision regarding a MP based on the matter of their dual citizenship status, that has to be done through a court procedure,” he said.

Claiming that there are 10 MPs that hold dual citizenship, Opposition “independent” MP Patali Champika Ranawaka said on 23 October that all such MPs should resign in a respectable manner, given that dual citizens are not allowed to enter the Parliament, in line with the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which was passed in Parliament on 21 October. He charged that although there is no issue in persons holding dual citizenship in cases such as bringing in investments, developing business ventures, and providing technical advice, dual citizens should not be allowed to be involved in processes where the people’s sovereign power is exercised.

The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution was passed in Parliament last week with a two-thirds majority. One of the key provisions in the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution is disqualifying dual citizens from contesting elections.