Police Commandos’ in high hostage drama in Vavuniya

By Shanika SRIYANANDA

Until 10 p.m. on June 28, the Elite Force Corps of the Sri Lanka Police were busy with routine work, mostly nabbing drug dealers. The call received by the Special Weapons and Tactics Unit (SWAT) that night alerted its specially trained Corps for a rescue mission.

“Get ready with your men and be there before 5 tomorrow morning”, the Chief of the Special Task Force (STF), DIG R. W. M. C. Ranawana instructed the leader of SWAT and briefed him about the situation where three jail guards were taken hostage by LTTE cadres in the Vavuniya prison.

ASP Sylvester Jagath Wijesinghe, who got ready with his 40 men, specially trained for rescue missions, raced from their Headquarters in Colombo to Vavuniya. Heeding their Chief’s orders, the contingent reached the location just five minutes before the scheduled time. By this time the Area Commander Trincomalee ASP S.N. Gunaratne was at the site with his small teams. Being the Officer-in-Charge of the small teams of the STF, his 40 man-team had already done a reconnaissance mission to get a first hand account of the situation inside the premises.

The transfer of three LTTE detainees including Saravanabhavan from Vavuniya prison to Anuradhapura following a Court order led the LTTE suspects to stage a protest. But later it developed into a hunger strike by 35 inmates, who were remanded on suspicion for their connections with the LTTE. They demanded that the other three inmates should be retained in the Vuvuniya prison. They also stopped prison officials from entering the prison premises.

With the situation becoming tense, the prison authorities strengthened security, with 100 additional prison officials deployed from the Welikada prison.

Meanwhile, the LTTE suspects had taken three jailers into their custody and the discussions held between the suspects and the prison authorities were not fruitful as they refused to release the three hostages until the authorities brought the three inmates back to the Vavuniya prison.

While all attempts to negotiate with the prisoners failed, the suspects who were on a hunger strike, mere becoming aggressive to win their demand by risking the lives of the hostages.The Police under the instructions of the Defence Ministry had to plan a rescue mission to free the three jail guards and to bring normalcy to the prison, where over 250 inmates were imprisoned.

A cache of mobile phones	ASP Sylvester Jagath Wijesinghe

As it was beyond the control of the Police and Prison guards, the instructions were given to call in Police Commandos.

Though they have not engaged in hostage rescue missions earlier, they proved their mettle in their fighting skills in the operation against the underworld at Maligawatte, where three prominent underworld kingpins were killed.

The two teams drew their initial plans and informed the STF chief about how they planned to execute the mission. “ ASP Gunaratne briefed me about the situation inside and the other security details to facilitate the mission. We had a look inside the premises by climbing the top of ladders and the water tank and we saw two tough LTTE suspects at the entrance communicating with someone using mobile phones”, ASP Wijesinghe said.

He said they were in a violent mood and carrying iron rods and were waiting for prison guards to enter the premises. The two groups armed with their plans rushed to Vavuniya to meet Senior DIG Gamini Silva.

There they were assured by the Army to deploy teams to face an emergency situation.

They returned to the prison premises with the final nod for the rescue mission, ASP Wijesuriya first decided to check the gas masks given to his men since it would primarily be a tear gas attack to control the rioters. “ we wanted to carry out the rescue mission without harming anyone so we wanted to neutralise the rioters through a gas attack”, he said.

As he wanted to test the gas masks and the efficiency of his men in the gas smoke, the commandos with gas masks were put into a sealed room and tear gas cannons were fired inside. After proving themselves to face the gas smoke, the commandos waited until they receive the final command for the ‘leap forward’.

“By that time the situation changed and the LTTE suspects came out from their cells and asked us to come forward without weapons. They were challenging and demanding us to come out”, he said.

It was 12.10 p.m., water and electricity supplies were disconnected. The 40 STF Commandos entered from the front, while ASP Gunaratne’s teams using ladders and ropes entered the premises from the rear. With no clue of the Commando attack from the rear, the rioters attacked ASP Wijesinghe’s men with stones before the Commandos began the attack with tear gas. Unable to bear the tear gas smoke, the LTTE suspects ran inside their cells while the three hostages ran in the opposite direction.

“Within five minutes of the operation we were able to rescue the three hostages. We couldn’t identify them as the jailers were harassed by the rioters during a 48-hour period. As they spoke in Sinhala we recognise them and handed them over to the prison guards to send them for treatment”, ASP Wijesinghe said. Those who enetered the two-storyed building from the other end fired tear gas through the windows and then all hell broke loose as they could not resist the gas smoke, all the LTTE suspects were covering their heads and were on the second floor. The Commandos arrested them and cleared all the ‘hidden treasure’ in their cells.

The prisoners of the Vavuniya Prison were transferred to the Anurahadapura prison, where security was beefed up with the help of additional prison guards deployed from Colombo.

Later, during search operations conducted by the STF and police officers, they recovered fifty-four phones and phone charges, five radios, two apple iphones with GPS, cash worth more than Rs 23,000, five knives made out of metal roofing sheets, iron rods and dry rations.

“There were biscuits, sugar, soft drinks, milk powder, rice over 100 kgs and other dry rations sufficient for over three-months. What I feel was they were controlling the prison and even they were cooking their own meals”, ASP Wijesinghe, the eperienced STF Commando, who was trained in Israel and USA on hostage rescue missions and served over two decades in the North and East, said.

The STF was formed as a special military arm within the Police Service to counter terrorist activities and contributed its might to elimination of LTTE terrorism in Sri Lanka by supporting the Sri Lanka Army from the time of the Mavil Aru Humanitarian Operation up to the end of the war. The elite STF Commandos were also able to counter the LTTE attacks that killed innocent civilians in the East and the terrorist activities in the Yala jungles.

“The STF commandos are ready at any time to counter any illegal activity”, said ASP Wijesinghe.