by Ashanthi Warunasuriya
Location in Mawanella, where Sulaiman’s body was found
The murder of millionaire businessman Mohammed Sakeem Sulaiman last week sent shockwaves in Colombo, raising fears of abduction gangs getting back on the streets.
The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) said that the businessman is suspected to have been killed over a recent business deal he was involved in.
The body, believed to be of the businessman from Bambalapitiya, was discovered from Mawanella last week, days after he was abducted.
The decomposed body of the businessman was discovered following a tip off received by the police. The Colombo Crime Division commenced an investigation into the disappearance of the businessman and to identify the suspects. Family members of the businessman lodged a complaint with police earlier stating that Mohammed Sakeem Sulaiman was missing from their house located at Kothalawala Avenue in Bambalapitiya.
Colombo Additional Magistrate Nishantha Peiris issued an order directing the Controller of Immigration and Emigration to prevent five persons, suspected to be involved in the murder of the millionaire businessman Mohammed Sakeem Sulaiman, from leaving the country.
The five businessmen – Mohammed Imran, Mohammed Iqbal, Mohammed Sadeer Basir, M. Sumar and Mohammed Sally Mohammed Samith, residents of Dematagoda and Bambalapitiya were thereby banned from traveling abroad, on the grounds that there is the possibility of them fleeing the country during the course of the investigation.
Twenty-nine year old Mohammed Sakeem Sulaiman was kidnapped from outside his house on Kothalawala Avenue, Bambalapitiya, on Sunday, August 21. His wristwatch was found and bloodstains were seen outside the house, and it was believed he was abducted.
The Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) investigating his death ruled that the millionaire textile businessman died due to a blunt force trauma to the head. Seven Police teams are investigating the case.
Speaking about the incident, Brito Fernando, a well known activist against abductions and President of the Families of the Disappeared, said that these types of incidents should not take place under any circumstances. Pointing out that even though there is a decline of such incidents in the country at present compared to the past years, Mr. Fernando says that the authorities have still not been able to put an end to this menace.
Another social activist who often speaks about these issues, Sureka Perera, said that there are still thousands of family members who are unaware of the fate suffered by their disappeared loved ones. She too urges the authorities to take immediate action to prevent these incidents from happening.
This may be the latest incident of killing after abduction. There have been many such incidents that had been reported in the recent past.
Thousands of people have disappeared in Sri Lanka since the 1980s. A 1999 study by the United Nations found that Sri Lanka had the second highest number of disappearances in the world and that 12,000 Sri Lankans had disappeared after being detained by the Sri Lankan security forces. A few years earlier the Sri Lankan government had estimated that 17,000 people had disappeared. In 2003 the Red Cross stated that it had received 20,000 complaints of disappearances during the Sri Lankan Civil War of which 9,000 had been resolved but the remaining 11,000 were still being investigated.
Human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Asian Human Rights Commission have documented many of the disappearances and attributed them to the Sri Lankan security forces, pro-government paramilitary groups and Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups.
In 2016 the government under President Maithripala Sirisena agreed to issue a certificate of absence to relatives of over 65,000 that went missing during the civil war and the Marxist uprising allowing them to temporarily manage the property and assets of missing people, to obtain provisional guardianship of their children and apply for government welfare schemes.
With this latest abduction several things have to be reconsidered. Could this be a re-emergence of underworld groups that had been suppressed during previous years? Has a new wave of abductions and killings started again? Hence it is up to the government to take immediate steps to prevent any further shame staining our country’s reputation in the world.