For those complacent souls living in the South, it would be no matter to shrug our shoulders and pass the case bye.

Yet, all aspects of what happened to this unfortunate woman make this a classic tracing of how easy it once was in Sri Lanka to subvert laws meant to contain "terrorists" in order to pay off personal scores and how vulnerable ordinary civilians and specially women can be, when caught in the crossfire.

For those of us still claiming to possess a conscience therefore, the case is of special interest.

Yogalingam Vijitha had entered into an arranged marriage at Vavuniya between her and an individual called Maheswaran alias Babu, living in Negombo.

Subsequently, after learning that her husband was already a married man with two children, she had refused to go through the customary Hindu marriage and to live with him as husband and wife. Maheswaran then commenced to harass her, consequent to which she had left home and proceeded to stay with her aunt in Trincomalee.

Significantly thereafter, she had received a number of phone calls from him, threatening that unless she returned to Negombo and lived with him, he would use his influence with the Negombo Police, have her arrested as a member of the LTTE suicide squad and have her tortured.

This was a threat which was a forerunner to a series of amazingly subversive events.

On the 21st of June, 2000 when coming out of the People's Bank, Trincomalee, she had been accosted by a group (later identified to be policemen) in civilian clothes headed by a Reserve Sub Inspector of the Negombo police station. She was arrested, hand cuffed and then taken to Negombo. There, she was first put into a garage and the police, after accusing her of being a LTTE suicide bomber, had assaulted her knees, chest, abdomen and back, with a club, causing her unbearable pain.

Some four hours thereafter, she was put into a cell at the Negombo Police Station and detained for five days under a detention order issued in terms of Regulation 19 (2) of the Emergency Regulation.

It is during this time, that she was subjected to torture of a barbarity that we should now be accustomed to hearing about.

Her face was covered with a shopping bag containing chilli powder mixed in petrol, suffocating her. She was made to lie flat on a table and whilst four policemen were holding her, four other policemen had pricked paper pins under the nails of the fingers and toes. She was assaulted with a club and wires and when she fell down, she was trampled with boots on.

On another occasion, she was hung and assaulted with a club.

Most heinously, when she had refused to sign statements prepared by the police, a plantain flower soaked in chilli powder had been introduced into her vagina.

Being unable to bear the torture, she had signed the statements which were neither read nor explained to her.

She was then transferred to the Terrorist Investigation Division where she was further assaulted. It was only on the 21st of September that she was remanded under Section 7(2) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act at the Negombo Remand Prison. By that time, she was suffering from extreme physical and psychological stress and was unable to function as a normal human being.

In late August this year, the Supreme Court in this country, after considering Yogalingam Vijitha's case, (while she was yet in remand), ruled that there had been a grievous violation of her fundamental rights under Article 13(1), (2) and Article 11 relating to freedom from unlawful arrest and freedom from torture. In the judgement of DPS Gunesekera J. ( with whom Justices M.D.H. Fernando and Ameer Ismail agreed),

"As Athukorala J in Sudath Silva Vs Kodituwakku 1987 2 SLR 119 observed 'the facts of this case has revealed disturbing features regarding third degree methods adopted by certain police officers on suspects held in police custody.

Such methods can only be described as barbaric, savage and inhuman.

They are most revolting and offend one's sense of human decency and dignity particularly at the present time when every endeavor is being made to promote and protect human rights".

While there had not been a shred of evidence to support her arrest on suspicion that she was an LTTE member, the torture that she had been subjected to was corroborated by independent medical testimony even though the medical examination that she was subjected to while in police custody was severely tainted and discounted for that reason. The Court awarded a sum of Rs.250,000/- to be paid as compensation and costs to Yogalingam Vijitha out of which Rs. 150,000/- was to be paid personally by the involved police officers of the Negombo Police Station and the balance Rs. 100,000/-by the State.

Crucially, the Attorney General was directed to consider taking steps under the Convention Against Torture and other cruel, Inhuman or degrading Treatment Or Punishment Act No. 22 of 1994 against the concerned police officers and any others who are responsible for the acts of torture perpetrated on Yogalingam Vijtha.

The latter direction by the Court is important for many reasons.

Yogalingam Vijitha's case is undoubtedly only one of similar cases that are legion through the decades that this country has been in conflict.

We still wait for the day when Act No 22 of 1994 is used effectively against police torturers, justifying the passionate hopes with which it was enacted.

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