Custodial deaths have brought criminal justice to its knees

FOR decades, Sri Lanka has witnessed a grim and depressingly familiar pattern. Individuals held in the custody of the State, whether by the Police or the Prisons Department, have died under strikingly similar circumstances.

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The official explanation has become almost formulaic with the detainee, often described as an alleged underworld figure, taken to recover hidden weapons, attempted to escape or attack officers, and was fatally shot. These accounts have been repeated so often that they have ceased to invite scrutiny and have become a convenient script to justify deaths that demand the highest level of investigation.