President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has appointed a six-member expert committee to establish how the tusker Kavantissa died at Galgamuwa, whether anyone was negligent in treating him, and what a national elephant conservation programme should look like. It has 30 days to report.
The appointment was announced by the President’s Media Division and reported by Hiru News at 7.07 p.m. and the Daily Mirror at 7.37 p.m. on Monday. The two filings agree on every name, task and deadline.
Who is on it
Former ministry secretary A. H. Sarath Wijesinghe chairs the committee. The members are:
- Professor T. Saminda Fernando
- Professor A. G. Anil Pushpakumara
- Professor U. K. Kalinga Padmalal
- Dr Jagath Gunawardena
- Attorney-at-Law Charaka Jayaratne
W. W. Harrison, Additional Secretary to the President, will coordinate its work.
What it has been told to do
The committee must examine the circumstances of the death at Siyambalangamuwa, Galgamuwa, on or around 16 October 2026, including its immediate and underlying causes, and determine whether any lapses or negligence occurred during the animal’s treatment.
Beyond the death itself, it must draft standard operating procedures for the welfare of wild elephants and recommend a national elephant conservation programme. A complete report covering all three — findings, SOPs framework and programme recommendations — is due to the President within 30 days, which places it around 18 November.
Kavantissa had been receiving treatment for an injured front leg.
The foreign-expert question has now been answered
The committee has been authorised to seek the assistance of both local and international experts. Both newsrooms carry this.
That matters because it closes a question this desk has been tracking. Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has repeatedly demanded that local and international experts be involved in investigating Kavantissa’s death. When he launched an organisation in the tusker’s name on Monday morning, this archive recorded that the only government answer on offer came from Environment Minister Dr Dhammika Patabendi on 18 October, who described an investigation running through several channels — all of them domestic — and that no filing showed the government addressing the foreign-expert demand directly.
By Monday evening it had. The committee’s terms expressly permit international expertise. No filing frames it as a response to Premadasa, and this article does not claim it was one; the point is that the question is no longer open.
Negligence in treatment is now inside the terms of reference
The instruction to determine whether there were lapses or negligence during treatment points the inquiry at the state’s own veterinary response, not only at whoever fired the shot.
That is a wider remit than the criminal case. On the same day the committee was announced, two men were remanded until 28 October over the shooting by a magistrate who said wildlife officials had not presented sufficient grounds. The committee is being asked to examine the conduct of the same department whose handling of the court case the magistrate criticised — though no filing connects the two, and the committee’s remit concerns the animal’s treatment rather than the prosecution.
This desk covered Kavantissa while he was still under treatment at Galgamuwa in September.
Not reported
Neither filing gives the committee’s members’ institutional affiliations or specialisms, says whether it can compel evidence or summon witnesses, states whether its report will be published, or explains how its work relates to the police investigation, the post-mortem, or the Environment Ministry’s own inquiry. Neither says what happens if the 30-day deadline is missed.
Sources: Daily Mirror, Hiru News.
