Vigilance committees formed to tackle terror

Though some foot dragging has been shown by certain police divisions to the Government decision to set up civil vigilance committees island-wide to combat LTTE terror tactics, the Colombo police have already carried out this task in recent weeks. About 3000 such committees with a membership of about 25,000 have been formed as a pilot project for the entire country, Colombo DIG Nimal Mediwaka said.

He is quick to insist that these members are no vigilantes on any witch hunts, but neighbourhood committees tasked to be vigilant about their surroundings especially for suspicious persons, parcels and vehicles. He told The Sunday Times yesterday that there is no question about any of them taking the law into their own hands as their task is merely to monitor and inform the authorities for necessary action.

One of the key objectives in setting up these committees was to avoid the type of tragedies witnessed in the Moneragala district early this week and the unnecessary loss of life in the Nugegoda bomb explosion due to unprofessional handling of a parcel bomb, he said.

The types of vigilance committees so far set up include neighbourhood watch committees to keep an eye on public utilities, school committees, street committees, apartment committees, three-wheeler committees and in slum areas garden committees. He said people who have volunteered to serve on these committees have shown tremendous enthusiasm as they are entrusted with the task of looking after their own security. After the recent claymore bomb attack outside Hotel Nippon, Slave Island targeting a military bus taking wounded soldiers for treatment, these committee members had been summoned for a meeting at the Police Depot grounds at Thimbirigasyaya and the response had been immense with more than 12,000 turning up.

To ensure proper coordination and interaction, the Colombo DIG said he had assigned up to eight police officers per station to attend to the supervision of these committees in their respective areas. DIG Mediwaka said already information flowing in from these committees has helped to make several detections in the Colombo region. On January 11 police had taken into custody 20 rounds of .50 machine gun bullets and 16 T-56 rifle bullets and a magazine along with two suspects. The items were found buried in a garden at Maligawatte. On Wednesday a much bigger haul was recovered from the ceiling of a house in Kotahena. These included a .22 rifle, 137 T-56 rifle bullets, two T-56 magazines, one micro pistol usually generally used by LTTE pistol gangs, 104 micro pistol bullets and one hand grenade. On Thursday police had recovered 300 grams of gun powder and four metres of fuse wire from the Pettah bus stand.

The DIG also assured rewards for those who provided the information with informers who tipped off the Kotahena arsenal getting the biggest chunk in reward money. He said public enthusiasm to tackle the menace was such that police get between 100 to 150 calls per day from the public on the police emergency number alone informing of suspicious happenings.

In addition to harnessing the assistance of vigilance committees the Colombo police division has been educating important groups of people like school van drivers, bus stand employees, city cleaners etc., in batches, on handling emergency situations. Yesterday it was the turn of city scavengers working for the CMC as well as private cleaning companies