The Police must first recognize the Laws and Rules, before subjecting the public to the same!

I sent my driver to Kurunegala to retrieve his driver’s license after paying the requisite fine for his mistake when crossing a single line on our way to Trincomalee last week.

We refused to bribe the Police Officer, and instead agreed fault, though in truth the Traffic Police were not on the road and jumped from a hidden spot inside a boutique or kade to apprehend the vehicle and a bus that was behind. Of course the Bus was not prosecuted as the driver immediately produced the bribe of Rs500 as is normal for them in these circumstances and were sent on their way and my driver was given the third degree and given a note to pay at the Post Office before retrieving the license at the Kurunegala Police Station to which the apprehending Traffic Police belonged.

So when he did the needful and went to retrieve his driving license the Traffic Police Officer HAD NOT surrendered his license to the POLICE STATION within 24 hours as he SHOULD, but still had it in his presence, a full 12 days after the incident! That ALONE SHOULD BE GROUNDS TO INTERDICT or at least suspend the officer for misconduct.

So my driver had to wait all day in Kurunegala, and had the Station inform the Officer that he had to surrender the license and he had to wait till he started duty at night, wasting a whole day of an employee of a private sector concern that provides a lot of taxation to the Government for them to spend on law enforcement like the Police Force!

The OIC traffic or at least the OIC (officer in charge of the Kurunegala Police Station) should have at least given a note to my driver and apologized that the license had NOT been given to the Station as per the rules, and told him that he will instruct the Officer to come to the Company to hand over the license forthwith in his own time, where he will have to take leave and spend his own money to do the needful.

BUT NO, that not how the Police work in Sri Lanka, they protect their own, even if they break the law. They merely asked him to wait for the man to swan in, in his own sweet time to begin his shift to have the license returned!

How can we the general public have respect for the law when they behave in such a condescending or worse cowardly, uncivilized way towards the people they are supposed to serve? It is not just disgusting, but a complaint to the Police Commission about this behavior will not result in correction, merely backlash and revenge by the law breaking Cop instead! SHAMEFUL~