A new twist in the macabre killing of Pattani Razeek

" When his body was finally exhumed on July 28 from the basement of a partially built house in Ootamavadi, East Batticaloa through two suspects arrested it was in a highly decomposed state. It now transpires that Mr Razeek ‘s disappearance had nothing to do with the government or the police but attributed to two greedy NGO fat cats and a cousin brother of a government minister who wanted a major slice of the NGO money."

by Our Political Editor in Colombo

(August 05, Colombo,  Sri Lanka Guardian) Mr. Pattani Razeek died of a heart attack. Only if it were that simple. The 54 year old managing trustee of Community Trust Fund had only just then returned from Norway with a large amount of money for his NGO when he was joined by two of his co-directors. These two had then kept him on watch at all times until they took him to Batticaloa and demanded they give them the funds. Mr Razeek became agitated and shocked when they started to threaten him. Soon after he developed heart failure.

Some 15 months since his disappearance, his colleagues, rights groups and mosque committee in his hometown Puttalam have been relentlessly sustaining a concerted campaign to find his whereabouts.

When his body was finally exhumed on July 28 from the basement of a partially built house in Ootamavadi, East Batticaloa through two suspects arrested it was in a highly decomposed state. It now transpires that Mr Razeek ‘s disappearance had nothing to do with the government or the police but attributed to two greedy NGO fat cats and a cousin brother of a government minister who wanted a major slice of the NGO money.

However police inaction purportedly through intimidation by the above-mentioned minister is believed to be the cause of the long delay in following the trail of Mr Razeek’s disappearance.

According to Udaya Kalupathirana from INFORM, a human rights documentation centre, the police had managed to trace phone calls and SIM cards used to intimidate Mr Razeek into parting with the NGO funds but they failed to follow up on the clues thus obtained through torturing the suspects.

Although Mr Razeek’s murder mystery is now solved through tireless campaign of NGOs, the same cannot be said of the thousands of disappearances and unexplained murders including several journalists which to this day remain unsolved and the government is not likely to pursue investigations since the answer lies at its doorstep. In other words these disappearances and murders have the hallmark of government complicity.

Incidentally what is the fate of cartoonist Prageeth Ekneliyagoda? This high profile disappearance is attracting world media attention and could add to the mounting evidence of war crimes against the government which does not tolerate dissent or criticism from the independent media.