A police sergeant attached to the Malwathuhiripitiya police station has been suspended after a video circulating on social media allegedly showed him asking for a kilogramme of chicken meat in exchange for a suspect’s release on bail.
The suspect had been taken into custody on the night of 26 September, Hiru News reported, and the footage is said to show the officer making the request in connection with the release.
The circulating video prompted an internal inquiry directed by the Assistant Superintendent of Police for Gampaha Division 04. The sergeant was suspended from service on the basis of that inquiry’s preliminary findings.
A wider preliminary investigation is now under way under the supervision of the Senior Superintendent of Police in charge of the Gampaha police division.
The allegation remains untested
No charges have been announced, and the allegation has not been tested in court. The suspension is a disciplinary step taken while the investigation continues, not a finding of guilt — the officer has not been named by the reporting outlet, and no account from him has been published.
The case belongs to a pattern that has become familiar in Sri Lankan policing: footage recorded on a phone and shared online, rather than a complaint lodged through formal channels, triggering the disciplinary process. Social media material has repeatedly set internal police inquiries in motion in recent months, and the usual sequence — video surfaces, divisional inquiry, suspension, then a senior officer’s investigation — was followed here within days.
The small scale of the alleged inducement is what has drawn attention to this case. The substantive question for the investigation is whether bail was conditioned on a payment of any kind, not what the payment was worth.
Hiru News was the only verified newsroom carrying the suspension at the time of writing.
Source: Hiru News.
