Random thoughts on Embilipitiya students' disappearances

by Justice P.H.K. Kulatilaka

[Part-2]

Another characteristic feature in these abductions was the crime doers came in the night.

They knocked at the door, posed themselves as police officers from the local police and got the inmates to open the doors. Where they refused they forced open the doors and entered the house. The first thing that they did was to order the inmates to turn off whatever light they had. All this was done to hide the identity of the intruders because they knew very well that they were engaged in an illegal exercise.

Parents were scared of the dangerous nights that were to come. Night and day the shadow of death would have been scaring them. Some children were hiding under their beds but were mercilessly pulled out and were carried away. None of them came back alive. In fact most parents thought that their children had done something wrong and would be released soon and come back alive. But it was not to be.

The High Court had abundance of evidence that these abducted students were taken to the Sevena Camp. One of the abductees who was released later had seen 15 to 17 students tied to a chain. They were naked. What happened after they were taken into the camp was shrouded in mystery. Even Sherlock Holmes would not have been able to solve it.

The High Court did not have the benefit of the evidence of the particulars of the crimes that could have come up in a police investigation. There was not a single inquest of death relating to any of the students named in he indictment. All evidence would have been suppressed or destroyed upon that occasion.

Ghostly hamlet

Endowed with a fertile hinterland it was a busy bustling trade centre during the harvesting season. Albeit, southern insurrection when a group of rebellious youth took to arms against the government creating problems on the one hand and the government armed forces set to quell the rebellion on the other had by the year 1989 converted the Embilipitiya area into a ghostly land. It was against this background the Embilipitiya students disappearance episode was set.

When their children were abducted the mothers rushed to the local police.

The police had either refused to take down any complaint or in the guise of taking down what they said had distorted their statements and wrote down things that they never told.

The fathers avoided going to the police station fearing arrest. Some mothers had directly gone to the Sevena camp but it was of no avail. There was the pathetic tale testified to at the High Court trial by a head mistress of a nearby school how one of the accused appellants made her to meet him on a number of occasions promising that he would hand over her 17 year old son after rehabilitation. In fact Justice J.F.A. Soza who had subsequently inquired into the students disappearance had observed that very few fathers opted to come forward to give evidence for fear of reprisals.

Even at the time of Suriyakanda mass grave digging the scenario had been still dreadful. 'Ghosts of Eliyakanda' writer who was a part of the media team describes it in the following terms. 'We headed for Suriyakanda the following day. At several places near Pelmadulla, where we broke journey we found rotten corpses removed from nearby cemeteries and dumped on the roadside by pro- government thugs as a warning to us. Worse, cattle bones had been put into the partially dug up mass grave. However digging continued without any untowered incident and more human bones were found... on the way back one of our vehicles came under gun fire. Luckily nobody was hurt'.

Curiosity

It was about five years after the Appeal Court judgement. On my way to Kataragama I stopped at Sevena in Embilipitiya. The camp was no more there. Instead there was some Government institution where training programs were being conducted.

I was in a casual dress. I spoke to a few villagers who were living close by. What they said was 'we were living at the same place during the days when students of the Maha Vidyalaya were abducted. We avoided this road going opposite the Sevena camp.

Even when we passed it we looked the other way. Any way the gates were closed. We don't know what happened inside'.

Even after so many years people were still scared to talk about the 'Sevena camp during 1989 - 1991 period'. It was so weirdly and frightening.

The judgement in this case is reported. Those readers who are interested can read Dayananda Lokugalappatti and others vs.

The State [2003] 3. Sri Lanka Law Reports 362.

The writer is former Director of the Sri Lanka Judges Institute.

Concluded