Accusations of torture against Police!

The Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission says certain actions of the Sri Lanka Police have violated the human rights of the general public.

According to the President of the Commission, Prof. Deepika Udugama over a 1000 complaints have been filed against the Police with the commision during the first three quarters of the 2017.

These include cases of arbitrary arrests, imprisonment and torture she said.

"Over a 1000 complaints"

The commission is said to have received 249 complaints of torture, 323 regarding threats,298 complaints of arbitrary arrests during the said time period.

While majority of the complaints were against the Police, certain complaints were against intelligence officers operating in the North and Eastern provinces the commission said.

According to Udugama while the country has progressed in the area of human rights however issues of human rights violations by the Police continues to be an issue today.

“We have received a large number of complaints against the use of torture as an investigation method” she said adding that the Police have been given recommendations after the completion of investigations by the commission on certain complaints received.

 ''Police must be restructured''

Udugama says the commission receives complaints against the Police on a daily basis therefore calling for the restructuring of the Police force with the help of foreign experts.

The government is in fact set to restructure the Police under the consultancy of Police reforms expert Sir Hugh Orde.

The OIC of the Divulapitiya Police station was arrested on Wednesday (January 03) by the CID over the death of a suspect in October last year when he was in police custody in Divulapitiya.