The Island Editorial

A’pura killing

Tuesday 03rd November 2015

The police have, at long last, arrested the main suspect in the Anuradhapura nightclub killing. A Special Forces deserter known as SF Lokka, he is alleged to have been involved in underworld activities.

Now that almost all wanted suspects have been taken into custody, it is hoped that they will be prosecuted expeditiously and justice done. Besides, drastic action is called for to neutralise the underworld and put an immediate end to the Wild West style attacks.

There are lessons that need to be drawn from the Anuradhapura incident. It is not only political power which goes to a person’s head and brings about his downfall; delusions of grandeur and vanity are also capable of driving one mad. The owner of the Panorama nightclub, Wasantha Zoysa who died at the hands of thugs apparently thought no end of his brawn as a karate champion and allegedly rode roughshod over even some of his own customers. The recent attack which snuffed out his life is believed to have been over a personal dispute.

Under the previous government a minister with underworld links and his equally notorious son used to smash up nightclubs at the drop of a hat. The police chose to look the other way even when their anti-narcotics sleuths conducting raids on nightclubs were assaulted. Perhaps, the Anuradhapura incident, too, would not have been taken seriously but for the attendant killing. How more than two dozen men armed with clubs, iron rods and sharp weapons carried out an attack in a city with a considerable police and security forces presence and fled the crime scene so easily boggles the mind. Perhaps, the area needs to be better policed.

One of our readers has, today, given an interesting answer to a query a letter writer posed recently: Did President Mahinda Rajapaksa lose the presidency because he had incurred God Kataragama’s wrath by building an airport in Mattala and causing peacocks to be killed in their numbers? (The peacock is believed to be the vehicle of that deity.)

Similar questions have been raised in the social media as regards the Panorama nightclub as well. The Anuradhapura karate exponent would perhaps have lived longer but for his club located in a sacred area. It catered to the likes of those who smashed it and put him to a violent death. The police previously raided it but its owners carried on regardless presumably because he was shielded by some politicians.

The Anuradhapura nightclub has drawn a lot of adverse criticism. Prominent religious leaders of the area and other concerned citizens vehemently objected to it on the grounds that it desecrated the sacred city, but the previous government, true to form, ignored their protests. The new government, too, has opted to turn a blind eye to the clubs in the sacred city though its leaders, before the presidential and parliamentary elections, promised to get rid of bordellos and rotgut dens in sacred areas.

Whether gods really mete out penalties to humans one may not know; but one is convinced that there is absolutely no need for divine or satanic interventions to bring about the downfall of anyone intoxicated with power and blinded by greed and hubris. For, he destroys himself, unaided.

The tragic death of narcissistic gladiator wannabe of Anuradhapura came as no surprise. It had been waiting to happen regardless of the location of his nightclub. The military deserter and his confederates are also in serious trouble for allegedly killing him in what looked like a battle for supremacy. The mastermind of the operation must have been cocky that he could get away with what he did; he was mistaken.

If the serious charges against the assailants and their ringleader are proved in courts of law, they may have to spend the rest of their lives behind bars. This is the fate that awaits conceited men and women with massive egos and disposition towards violence seeking personal aggrandisement.