Independence of NPC questioned

Assault on journalist:

The National Police Commission’s claim that it is waiting for a report from IGP Pujith Jayasundara on an incident where an Assistant Superintendent of Police slapped a journalist under police custody during a protest at Hambantota on Friday is ludicrous, says former commissioner of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission Dr Prathiba Mahanamahewa.

“The NPC is considered an independent commission and, therefore, it should have deployed its own investigators and probed what happened at Hambantota”, Dr Mahanamahewa said, adding that thereafter the NPC should compile its own report and hand it over to the IGP for further action.

Dr. Mahanamahewa said there had been a similar incident where police attacked Higher National Diploma in engineering students engaged in a protest march recently in Colombo. Months had lapsed but nobody knew if any action had been taken by the NPC against the police personnel responsible for the attacks, he said.