Demolition of Dehiwala Soul Beach Hotel..! “Assess the damage and pay compensation to the owner and employees..!” The Human Rights Commission orders…! Deshabandu 

The Inspector General of Police Deshbandhu Thennakoon and Minister of Police Tiran Alas are fulfilling the demands of higher echelons only by brutality. On 1 January 2024 without any court order, around 400 police officers surrounded the Dehiwala Soul Beach Hotel along the Marine Drive with a full anti-riot force surrounded by water cannons and dozered the premises for nothing but to fulfill a personal revenge. The owner of the hotel ‘Mohammed Rifa’, continuously held press conferences and revealed with evidence that it was done to obtain a bigger chair. 

After demolishing the hotel, IGP Deshabandu, who was trying to fulfill his promises to the big chairs by further oppressing the owner and employees of the hotel who filed a fundamental rights case against him, gave false orders to his police officers on May 14 (05.14, 2024). A case was concocted and two civil engineers and 12 other innocent people who were in the Dehiwala Soul Beach Hotel premises were arrested.

The Chief Magistrate of the Mount Lavania court issued the bail order in response to the statements of the police, who had taken the first step to instill fear in Soul Beach tourists by remanding these people and intimidating them, stating that no evidence has been presented before the court to raise charges under public property Act. 

It is a fact that everyone knows by now that the illegality of the law and the deployment of police teams according to a personal agenda only to the Soul Beach Hotel is due to the rapid collapse of the income of the Barracuda Hotel owned by the former army commander Shavendra Silva in this same area. The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, which examined the complaint received regarding the demolition of the Soul Beach Hotel, has published its recommendations on 30.05.2024.

Among those recommendations, it has been recommended to the Urban Development Authority to investigate and take appropriate measures regarding the way the Director General of the Coastal Conservation and Coastal Management Department has acted in this incident. 

Also, recommended to the IGP to investigate and take appropriate measures how Senior Superintendent of Police Mangala Dehideniya and Deputy Inspector General of Police G.H Marapana has acted 

As a third recommendation, it has been recommended that the government should provide appropriate compensation for the period to the people who lost their jobs due to the demolition of the hotel.

The senior  Superintendent of Police, who is a chief police officer of Deshabandu Tennakoon who is afraid that he has violated Article 12 and 14 (1) (g) of Chapter 3 of the Constitution by intervening outside his scope and arbitrarily and unlawfully demolishing this Soul Beach Hotel. It has been reported that Mangala Dehideniya has sought the friends of the owners of the Soul Beach Hotel and has made several requests to withdraw the fundamental rights cases filed against them.

The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has strongly questioned the break-in of the Soul Beach Hotel when it is only their scope to provide security, under the guise of the operation of justice outside the scope, and has severely questioned the inclusion of license checks and permit checks in the operation of justice rather than the suppression of drug trafficking and organized crime.