An Up-Country People’s Front parliamentarian has drawn attention to the period of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) control in the North-East as he backed tougher legal measures to tackle the island’s illicit drug crisis.
Speaking during Thursday’s parliamentary debate on the Judicature (Amendment) Bill and the Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Bill, Up-Country People’s Front leader and Samagi Jana Balawegaya Member of Parliament for Nuwara Eliya, V. Radhakrishnan, expressed full support for the proposed reforms and called for the imposition of severe punishments to curb narcotics-related crime.
Radhakrishnan said that crimes would decline only if strict penalties were enforced and confirmed that his party would extend its complete backing to the amendment bills presented before Parliament. He emphasised the urgent need for robust legal measures, stating that addiction was destroying families and undermining economic development.
Highlighting what he described as a stark contrast in conditions across the island, Radhakrishnan referred to the North-East during LTTE’ leader Velupillai Prabhakaran’s control of the region. He said that narcotics use and abuse were not prevalent in the region at that time, contrasting it with the current situation, which he described as having deteriorated significantly. He further observed that similar patterns were now emerging in the Hill Country.
The MP linked the worsening crisis to failures in law enforcement, stating that the absence of proper implementation of law and order had allowed narcotics use to intensify. He added that many of the murders reported across the island in recent years were linked to drugs and insisted that maximum penalties should be imposed to bring the situation under control.
While acknowledging the Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake had taken steps to address drug-related issues, Radhakrishnan said that since the present government assumed office, killings were being reported daily in various parts of the island. He maintained that many of these incidents were directly connected to narcotics and called for decisive action to halt the violence.
He also warned of a growing nexus between drug trafficking and organised criminal groups, stating that the entire country was now under threat. Drawing comparisons with Islamic countries, he noted that stringent punishments are imposed there for drug-related offences and argued that similarly strict laws should be implemented in Sri Lanka.
He is not the first parliamentarian to make comparisons to the LTTE-era.
In October, Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) leader and Jaffna District MP Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam said that during the period when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) controlled large parts of the North-East, narcotics use among Tamils was “virtually nonexistent”.
“The LTTE treated the prevention of drug use as a serious social responsibility, and they succeeded,” he said. “Even in areas under government control at the time, drug use was minimal. The traffickers lived in fear.”
