The investigation into Dr. Shafi Shihabdeen’s arrest in May has taken a new twist due to glaring inconsistencies between a B report that appears in the records of the Kurunegala Magistrates Court and statements made, thereafter, by senior Kurunegala police officers to the CID.
In their statements before the CID, Kurunegala DIG Kithsiri Jayalath, SP Mahinda Dissanayake and OIC Pushpalal all claim that they were tipped off about the sterilisation controversy and commenced investigations only after the Sinhalese daily Divaina published a lead story about the issue on May 23. They stated explicitly that no investigations took place into Dr. Shihabdeen prior to that date.
However, long after recording these statements, when CID officers perused the B file of the Kurunegala Magistrate’s Court case, they found a B Report dated May 22, three days before the Divaina report, that left the sleuths confounded. The report, typeset on A4 paper, specifically refers to an investigation into a doctor connected to ISIS performing sterilisations on Sinhalese women, that was started based on an intelligence tip off referred to the Kurunegala police by DIG Jayalath. The May 22 B report does not name Dr Shafi. The B report also claims that the doctor had recently purchased a property within the Kurunegala city limits with funding from NGOs.
None of the police officers make reference to the B report filed in court on May 22, or the original intelligence tip-off in the statements made to the CID.
The discrepancy has raised grave questions about the credibility of the May 22 B report and statements made to the CID by the senior Kurunegala policemen.
This is an odd piece of information to leave out of their statements to the CID, lawyers said, because it would have helped the cops to build their case for arresting Dr Shafi, especially since that arrest is now being challenged in court by way of a fundamental rights application in the Supreme Court where all the Kurunegala cops have been cited as respondents.
On May 23, Pushpalal filed another B report, this time on the regular prescribed form, seeking an order from the Magistrate to ban the Muslim doctor’s travel.
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Indeed, when Dr. Shafi was arrested on May 25, the charge was suspicious accumulation of large quantities of undeclared assets, and no mention was made of the B Report purportedly filed three days prior. The very next day, DIG Jayalath urged women with complaints that they had been sterilised without their consent to come forward.
The investigation into the now widely debunked sterilisation scare has been mired in controversy, with major players involved in implicating the Muslim doctor on false charges demonstrating serious conflicts of interest. CID investigations have found that both SP Dissanayake and Hospital Director AMS Weerabandara had falsified complaints in attempts to mislead court and the investigators. DIG Jayalath is also reportedly under internal investigation for his role in the controversy, and for addressing the media about the allegations without clearance from the Department.
Dr. Shafi’s wife, Dr. Imara, this week wrote to the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) citing concerns on a ‘fair and impartial’ hearing of her husband’s case. She points out wife of Magistrate Hewawasam and wife of the Deputy Inspector General, the third respondent of Dr. Shafi’s Fundamental Rights application, were both employed at the KTH as subordinates of the hospital director Dr. Sarath Weerabandara, who has come out a vociferous critic of Dr. Shafi.
Dr. Imara’s report goes further and charges that the reports filed by Inspector of Police Nishantha Silva shows that the magistrate has ordered the court stenographer to expunge submissions made by Dr. Weerabandara in the open court, which could have been used to vindicate Shafi and secure his freedom.
The Young Journalists’ Association has also lodged a similar complaint with the JSC last week against the Magistrate’s alleged conduct.
The CID has not formally raised any suspicion about when the May 22 B Report found its way into the Magistrates Court file, however investigations into this report remain ongoing.