The killing of 28 people in sudden, apparently uncontrolled violence in an overcrowded prison outside Colombo, on Monday, speaks to a culture of mismanagement and official apathy. Reports of tensions inside the premises emerged on Sunday, with two inmates reported dead initially. Authorities deployed the military around the prison soon after, but the violence escalated on Monday, leaving more than two dozen dead and over 100 injured. Monday’s riots followed a group of inmates tipping off officials on an alleged drug operation on the prison premises. Some inmates reportedly grabbed arms from the guards, while others assaulted rival gang members with clubs and stones, even as guards struggled to contain the violence; eight guards were among those dead. Authorities have transferred hundreds of remaining inmates to other prisons. The incident, one of the deadliest prison riots in Sri Lanka, foregrounds two key challenges facing the Anura Kumara Dissanayake administration — the narcotics menace that it has resolved to wipe out, and the chronic overcrowding in prisons, a concern that rights defenders have repeatedly highlighted for years.

In 2020, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka found prison conditions to be dire, owing to overcrowding and under-resourcing. As of December 31, 2024, the country’s prisons housed 28,278 inmates against an approved capacity of 10,395, operating at nearly thrice their capacity, according to the 2024 Auditor General’s Report. Authorities have linked the immediate trigger for the riots to the drug underworld, which the Dissanayake administration has been trying to crack down on. Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara has rightly noted that regardless of the attackers’ motivations or the crimes they are accused of, the death of people in state custody is “deeply shocking”, and that the government accepts responsibility. The Cabinet has appointed a three-member committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge to carry out a thorough investigation. The government’s response and seeming willingness to probe the causes for the deadly incident, are welcome and necessary. It is the third after the 2012 Welikada prison riots, where 27 inmates were shot dead by police, and the 2020 riots in Mahara, near Colombo, which claimed 11 lives. The pace of the probe and the government’s response will reveal its intent to address long-pending concerns around the country’s prisons. It must work towards improving prison conditions, living standards, and security, to prevent further clashes. Meanwhile, authorities must persist with the efforts to disable drug networks that pose a grave threat to society, including within prisons.

The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) said there exists a reasonable likelihood that the burials at the Chemmani mass grave in the north were unlawful and a result of extrajudicial killings.

“There is a reasonable likelihood that the burials were unlawful and pursuant to extrajudicial killings,” said HRCSL in a report issued on Wednesday following their visit to the site on August 3 and 4.

Early this year, at Chemmani in Jaffna, during a routine development work, skeletal remains were discovered.

The court in Jaffna declared it a mass grave in July and ordered a legally supervised excavation.

Chemmani in 1998, at the height of the conflict between the LTTE and government troops, came under focus for an alleged mass grave. Some 15 skeletons were discovered then.

The main Tamil party, Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), said that the site presents clear evidence of war crimes and “a genocidal campaign against the Tamils”.

Confirming reports that over 200 skeletal remains have been found so far in the excavations, the right body said that over 90 per cent of the human remains found at the site had no form of clothing whatsoever.

HRCSL has observed that the positioning of the skeletal remains was in extreme proximity to one another, and the remains were in a shallow depth.

The HRCSL report added that there remains a gap in capacity and willingness among law enforcement authorities to ensure accountability for the deaths of the persons found at the site.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake visited Jaffna this week and assured of transparent investigation into the excavation of the mass grave.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, also expressed concern about the issue during his visit to the Chemmani mass grave in June.