Heres why the Sri Lankan government (which is only one of the governments involved in harming me, lucky me!) likes me so much. Those of you who know need not being reminded of this night but for those people who dont, on the 16th of January 2013 a group of Engineering students of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Moratuwa (which is the faculty and University I studied for my Bachelors and graduated from) were brutally assaulted by a gang of thugs who broke into the University premises and took control of the property from till around 8 in the night to early morning. They broke into the hostels where the students were hiding, crashed the glass windows, broke down the doors by cutting them with swords and axes and dragged out the students. The pleas of the students to the University academic and other staff were not responded to, the police was late in coming and even when they got there they stood around watching the violence without entering the premises. The violence was brutal and the accounts are heart rendering. They were tortured, beaten up severely, attempted to be killed with petrol bombs, hit with battons, cut with swords, hit on the head with bricks, chased from each place of hiding to the other and made to come out. Some 30 something students were severely injured, one was brain-damaged (his skull was cracked open) and hundreds of others were injured. The damage to the University property was reported to be 1 million Rupees. The true details did not come out in the media, but I talked to many people and heard about the real accounts of what occurred that night. The accounts vary on how many unauthorized people entered the university and who exactly is responsible. There was a court case started but I have not seen anything about the progress of it after the first few weeks. It was a group of students of NDT (National Diploma in Technology) which belongs to the Institute of Technology, another institute belonging to the same university who were held responsible for the attack. There has been on-going tension between the two groups of students starting from the end of nineties due to the difference in curriculum and the request of NDT students for their Diploma to be recognized the same as the Engineering degree. There are fights that break out now and then but the brutality of this event was shocking and unprecedented even compared to any other attack on any group of students in a state University of Sri Lanka. There are many points about this incident that perplexed all those who came across this incident. I would have normally read the news and forgotten about the incident because its not uncommon for groups of students to clash at this age and in these circumstances but because it was a strange situation I kept up with the information. A few days after the attack I came across a Facebook page supporting the students who went through the attack (titled Mora E-Fac which seems to have gone missing) and although I have never shown any interest in Campus politics I felt compelled to defend them. (For those of you who dont me I have not been a politically active person in the past. But I do read local and International news. The only outward action I have made before this is share about three critical posts about the current government. Although I have strong political opinions about the current government and the situation of the country out of fear for myself and my family I have not spoken them out loud or made any actions based on them. I dont know many people who are politically active, I do know a few people who are critical of the government but I dont discuss political issues with them). Although there are many thousands of past students of the Faculty I was the one who made the most number of comments, with the strongest language, and for the longest duration (even after everyone else went silent I kept commenting). There were some other past students and faculty members who started commenting but they gave up soon afterwards. It was strange how everyone seemed to drop out of the case, both online and offline. The organizations, academic bodies and academic staff who were vehemently critical of the attack suddenly went silent. The information has come to me that the group of students who were attacked was a group which held critical opinions about the government and gathered together to hold discussions about their opinions and what they could do about the situation in the country. (If youre not aware of the situation of this country read about the suppression of people who hold critical opinions of the government, suppression of media freedom and harassment of journalists, human rights violations, economic difficulties of people, increasing global debts, absence of an opposition political party, attacks on university students and intellectuals, overthrowing of the Chief of Justice, harassment of lawyers and judges etc. just to let you know where to begin with). Which piece of information explains a lot of perplexing details about this incident. I have also been made to understand that because of my strong political opinions and my personality traits which mean that someday I may fearlessly act on them, I have been monitored since then and controlled to behave in a way that does not cause complications to the government. And this incident, my actions during it, my strong political opinions and my personality traits which would mean I may someday act on them have led to the current on-going critical situation Im going through.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 07:59:51 +0000
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