The heads of both of Sri Lanka’s principal monastic chapters raised the imprisonment of Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera with visiting prison officials in Kandy on Friday — and the officials told them nothing has been decided.
A delegation of senior prison officials, including Commissioner of Prisons (Operations and Media) Senaka Palletenna, paid a courtesy call at the Asgiriya Maha Viharaya, where the Asgiriya Chapter’s Mahanayake, Most Ven. Warakagoda Sri Gnanarathana Thera, asked whether any procedure existed to secure Gnanasara Thera’s release, the Daily Mirror reported.
Palletenna replied that no definitive decision had been made on the matter to date. Hiru News carried the same exchange, describing the Mahanayake Thera as requesting that action be taken to release the monk.
A second, structural request at Malwathu
The officials then called on the Malwathu Chapter’s Mahanayake, Most Ven. Tibbatuwawe Sri Sumangala Thera, who raised something different: he proposed establishing a separate facility to hold Buddhist monks who are remanded or imprisoned over allegations.
The Malwathu Mahanayake Thera said the proposal had been discussed before without a final decision, and stressed the need for a place where monks could be accommodated appropriately and perform religious observances without hindrance. Only the Daily Mirror reported this part of the day; Hiru’s filing covers the Asgiriya meeting alone.
Where this sits in the dispute
The request is a further step away from the issue the campaign began with. The original grievance was prison attire, and the government conceded it — an interim order amending Departmental Order 550 allows monks robes when leaving prison premises, alongside a new regulation giving the Commissioner General ten days to consult Buddhist Affairs on admissions. The committee behind those changes handed its interim report to the ministry on 14 October, a day ahead of schedule, and the Mahanayake Theras were named as reviewers of that work on 11 October.
Robes were settled; release was not. Monks camped outside the Presidential Secretariat have been demanding Gnanasara Thera’s freedom, and a Colombo Fort magistrate barred 54 of them from the premises on Friday morning. Friday’s two meetings put the same demand to the prisons department through the monastic hierarchy rather than the street, and add a request — a dedicated facility for monks in custody — that no filing in this archive has recorded before.
Not reported
Neither newsroom says who arranged the visits, whether the delegation carried any message from the government, or what the prisons department’s position is on a separate facility.
