Secretary of the Ministry of Public Security and former Senior DIG Ravi Senaviratne says that while investigations are underway into crimes committed during the previous government, certain organized political groups and organized individuals are working to destabilize the country, and that the law will be strictly enforced against those groups and individuals.

The secretary of the Public Security Ministry, said that the country will not be allowed to be destabilized by any means and they are receiving full support from the intelligence agencies, the three-forces and the Defense Ministry.

The Secretary said this while speaking at a special media briefing held at the Government Information Department in Polhengoda, Kirulapone.

He further said

“It is very evident that a conflict situation has been created between organized criminal groups.

Various reasons and factors have influenced the creation of a conflict situation. Extortions,  drug trade and politics have also affected it. Organized criminal groups had political affiliations at some point in time.The underworld activities have escalated. If we take the most recent incident, the incident that took place at the Aluthkade Magistrate court, where an organized group leader named Ganemulla Sanjeewa was shot and killed. Within a few hours, with the intervention of the Acting IGP, the suspect connected to the murder is tracked down and arrested. 

In another incident a triple murder took place in Middeniya in the Southern Province. However the criminals were arrested with the help of the intelligence services and with the help of the Police Special Task Force. Our Police Department is doing a very good job of bringing criminals to justice in connection with recent crimes.

We are getting support from the intelligence agencies as well as the three armed forces for those operations. Another thing we see here is that many of the leaders of organized criminal groups are living outside the country. They are doing all these criminal activities from Dubai. As a government we are getting diplomatic support and necessary facilities from those countries. With that support efforts are being made to bring those criminals to the country and prosecute them before the law. That work has also begun and is being done well. So far, nine suspects have been brought from the gulf and four suspects from India. The police and the Ministry of Defense are working on the legal process to bring these suspects to justice. 

For example – Interpol Red Notices have been issued to all the criminals who have fled the country. Those who were brought to Sri Lanka were also brought on the basis of Red Notices. While investigations against the organized underworld are being conducted well, while the law is being implemented, while the work of suppressing the underworld is being carried out well, we see that in some cases we have reports of some groups and organized individuals who are working with the aim of sabotaging our work”

“We have information, we have identified who they are. There are reasons for that, as we said earlier, the existence of these organized crime groups depends on the illegal activities they carry out and the support of some corrupt political groups. The process of implementing the law against them is ongoing. As you may remember, controversial incidents were reported. People were kidnapped, People were murdered and some people were assaulted. Others were hacked to death. Crimes like the Easter attack, which posed a serious threat to national security, and re-investigations have begun regarding those incidents. Not only have they begun, but those investigations are progressing well. Some suspects have been arrested in connection with these incidents. The investigations of some have been completed and steps have been taken to file cases in court. Re-investigations have been initiated regarding the Easter attack and steps have been taken to uncover facts that have not been revealed yet.

While we are successfully investigating this, intelligence agencies have reported to us that certain groups are working to sabotage the investigation and destabilize the country. We have initiated investigations into this also. We have identified those individuals. To be very clear, those individuals have been identified. In the future, the law will be strictly enforced against them. No one will be allowed to continue doing crimes or destabilize the country. I believe that this situation will be resolved very soon and these investigations will be able to proceed”