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Police accused of giving communal twist to clashes
Uneasy calm in Alutgama
From Asif Fuard in Alutgama
An uneasy calm prevailed yesterday in the Alutgama area - the scene of three days of clashes between unruly elements in the Sinhala and Muslim communities - although police, against whom much of the allegations were levelled at claim the situation had been brought under control.

With simmering tension evident underneath, residents accuse some police officers of giving a communal twist to a dispute between a shopkeeper and his clients and fanning ethnic tension in the area.

When we visited Alutgama, Beruwala and Dharga Town, the areas resembled ghost towns with broken shops and burnt remnants of buildings and houses - signs of a mob rampage. The damaged merchandise of shops littered the streets of Dharga Town and Alutgama - the worst-affected areas - where police imposed a curfew and maintain tight security with the help of the security forces.

The riots erupted on Wednesday over a minor dispute between four youths who were not happy with a mobile phone they bought from a shop and the shop owner. According to residents, the youths damaged the shop and assaulted the shop owner when the argument got out of hand.

The Muslim shop owner then shouted ‘kallan, kallan’ (thief, thief) to draw the attention of the neighbouring shopkeepers, most of whom were also Muslims. The shop had in the past reportedly been burgled several times.

The youths fled the scene when neighbouring shopkeepers and employees gathered but they managed to catch one of the youths and assault him before handing him over to the police, according to residents.

They alleged that an Alutgama police sub-inspector spread a rumour that the Sinhala youth who was assaulted had died. It was this rumour which sparked the riots with some elements in the Sinhala community from the coastal areas of the three towns attacking Muslims.

It was also alleged that police encouraged the mob because the youth who was assaulted by the Muslim mob was a son of a retired senior police officer in the area.

Residents in the Muslim-dominated Dharga Town alleged that the police were present when they came under attack and did nothing to prevent when their houses were set ablaze.

Mohamed Sheriff, a Dharga Town resident said that when a mob entered his house and looted his valuables, he appealed to the police officers outside his house to intervene and stop the mob, but they didn’t do anything. “We begged them to help us, but they said they can’t get involved. What’s the use of our law enforcement authorities if they can’t protect law-abiding civilians? We want President Mahinda Rajapaksa to take stern action against these police officers,” an angry Mr. Sheriff said.

Mohamed Nadeek who is the manager of a textile shop in Alutgama said that despite the police curfew the mobs burnt his shop. “We got the news that our shop was being burnt so we called the police to take us to the scene.

We were first taken to the police station to lodge a complaint and after that when we went to the shop the mob was there burning it down with many other shops. The police came but did nothing. Seeing us the mob started to assault my uncle who is the owner of the shop, and me. They caught me and threw me into the well then they started throwing stones at me while I was in it. It was only two fire fighters who rescued us,” he said.

In Dharga Town alone 18 business premises had been burnt down along with several houses. The losses the Muslims suffered are running in millions of rupees.

Fifty four people were injured in Dharga Town, 22 in Alutgama and 12 in Beruwala due to the clashes. Residents blame the police and say the number of casualties would have been less if the police had taken action.

The Sunday Times also learns that when Police Headquarters in Colombo learnt the situation was going from bad to worse and called the Alutgama Police Superintendent’s office, the response was the ‘situation is under control’.
This led to a delay in sending reinforcements in time.

Schools were one of the main targets of the mobs. When schools closed girls who were returning home were allegedly manhandled by the mobs in the presence of the police. The mobs allegedly removed the purdah and the trousers Muslim schoolgirls wear while a few were allegedly sexually harassed.
In another instance soldiers entered a Muslim house and allegedly raped a girl who had got married recently and stole her jewellery worth Rs. 250,000. The mob later torched that house. When The Sunday Times visited the scene neighbours in the area said the family had left the area since the girl had suffered a nervous breakdown due to the trauma.

It is learnt that the soldiers had acted in revenge since one of their colleagues who had got involved in the clashes had been assaulted. When this writer and his photographer colleague were walking along on the street a group of police officers stopped us and a sub-inspector asked what we were doing when it was obvious that we were from the media.

The SI said that if the media wanted information the police should be asked and not the people. When The Sunday Times contacted the area Senior Superintendent of Police Ravi Wijeygunawardane he said six culprits had been arrested so far and three of them remanded. He further said the ‘situation is 100% in control’.

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