By kassapa
The fate of Deshabandu Tennakoon is sealed, at least for the foreseeable future. Parliament resolved on Tuesday evening that the suspended Inspector General of Police (IGP) should be stripped of his position. It was the culmination of a long-drawn-out process by which Tennakoon would be removed from office in terms with the Removal of Officers (Procedure) Act, No. 5 of 2002. It was the first time that this legislation was put into effect, after being in the statute books for twenty-three years. Late on Wednesday, it was announced that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had signed off on Tennakoon’s removal from office.
If right thinking citizens, civil society activists and assorted others are heaving a collective sigh of relief, two questions must be asked. Firstly, how was a person of Tennakoon’s calibre allowed to reach the top of the Police Force? Secondly, what exactly would his future be?
Tennakoon had a meteoric rise through the ranks of the Police. That is because he knew the way to the top was by pleasing his political masters. During that time Mahinda Rajapaksa, no stranger to the ‘you scratch my back, I will scratch yours’ principle, was in power. Tennakoon did Rajapaksa’s bidding and Rajapaksa rewarded him with promotions and power.
That Tennakoon was the Rajapaksas’ lap dog in the Police was very much evident in the events that led to Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s ouster from power. It was Tennakoon who led the mob from Mahinda Rajapaksa’s then official residence, Temple Trees, to Galle Face to attack protestors at the ‘Gota Go Gama’. It was also Tennakoon who was accused of mishandling the money left behind by Gotabaya Rajapaksa when he fled in a hurry. Clearly, he was in the thick of things.
One would have expected stand-in President Ranil Wickremesinghe to be wary of trusting a Rajapaksa acolyte as IGP. He was. For many months, he kept extending the term of C.D. Wickramaratne until he no longer could. Even then, in November 2023, he granted Tennakoon an appointment only as ‘Acting IGP’.
Tennakoon overcame that hurdle by getting Tiran Alles, Wickremesinghe’s Minister of Public Security to advocate for him. However, just a month later, in December 2023, the Supreme Court issued a damning verdict against Tennakoon, finding guilty of torture of a suspect and supervising the application of ‘Siddhalepa’ on his genitalia.
Nevertheless, two months later, by February 2024, Alles had prevailed on Wickremesinghe to appoint Deshabandu Tennakoon against all odds, going to the extent of defying a split vote in the Constitutional Council to do so. There was a quid-pro-quo in play: in return for his substantive appointment Tennakoon was to work towards ensuring Wickremesinghe’s victory at the presidential election that was to follow.
These best laid plans however went awry. Just two months before the poll, in July 2024, the Supreme Court suspended Tennakoon from functioning as IGP after nine Fundamental Rights petitions were filed against him. Wickremesinghe ignored a direction by the highest court in the land to appoint an Acting IGP, a position that was filled only after President Dissanayake took office.
Despite the array of cases lined up against him, Tennakoon was still a force to reckon with but all that came undone when the case regarding the shooting at the ‘W15’ hotel in Weligama was heard. The incident which cost the life of one Policeman forced Tennakoon to go into hiding, resulting in the ridiculous spectacle of the Police force hunting for its own fugitive Police chief!
It was after more details emerged in this case that a resolution was moved in Parliament proposing his removal. What transpired in Parliament last Tuesday was the penultimate step in Tennakoon’s removal from office which was completed when Dissanayake signed on the dotted line.
What then is Tennakoon’s future now? The debate on the resolution to remove Tennakoon sheds some light on that. No one voted against the resolution but there was an important absentee, Namal Rajapaksa, who spoke and made his sentiments known.
Rajapaksa’s conduct during the debate was pathetic, didn’t befit a lawyer and was grossly unbecoming of one who aspires to lead the nation. Initially Rajapaksa sought to stall the debate citing Standing Orders of Parliament. Predictably, that failed. Then, in his speech, Rajapaksa mocked the accusation of torture against Tennakoon, asking “who saw the Siddhalepa being applied?”, when there was already a Supreme Court judgment on the issue. It also displayed his utter insensitivity to the victim.
What this in fact demonstrated was an enduring loyalty towards Tennakoon. The disgraced policeman is still relatively young and will reach the retirement age of sixty only in 2031. If, by some turn of events, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) returns to office by that time, it is a fair bet that Tennakoon will be recalled, reinstated even for a day and then retired in all his glory with all his past misdemeanours being pardoned. If that does happen, it will be a sad day for law and order and for the Sri Lanka Police because a returning Tennakoon will be hellbent on revenge, both within and outside the Police.
There is also the likelihood that, even if Tennakoon is unable to return to the Police by 2031, he could take to politics on the SLPP ticket and end up as a minister with oversight of the Police. These are not whims and fancies of conspiracy theorists; stranger things have happened in this country.
The only way this can be prevented is if Tennakoon finds himself behind bars for a reasonable length of time. That is quite possible, given that he faces about a dozen cases, with some of the charges against him being quite serious. Whether the wheels of the justice system will turn speedily and efficiently for that to become a reality remains to be seen.
Many see Tennakoon’s dismissal this week as the end of his career in the Police. However the avatar of Tennakoon will loom large in the months and years to come- and reincarnate in a different form if measures are not adopted to ward off this evil.
