Parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa alleged in the House on Tuesday that Environment Minister Dr. Dhammika Patabendi supplied the firearms used to shoot animals approaching chena cultivations, field huts and houses — putting the question of who armed the shooters directly to the minister responsible for wildlife.
“Who provided the guns? Your Minister supplied the firearms,” Rajapaksa said, the Daily Mirror reported at 4.37 p.m.
He raised it while questioning the government’s responsibility for the shooting of the tusker Kavantissa, and accused the Environment Ministry of failing to give the case adequate attention for more than a month. He said that those responsible for the shooting, those who supplied the weapons and those protecting them would eventually be exposed.
What is being alleged, precisely
The allegation as reported is narrower than “the minister shot an elephant,” and the distinction matters.
Firearms are issued to farmers in Sri Lanka under licence to scare crop-raiding animals away from chena plots and field huts — a long-standing and lawful practice. Rajapaksa’s claim is that weapons distributed through that channel, under the minister’s authority, are the weapons that end up being fired at elephants. The charge is about the consequences of a supply decision, not about an individual pulling a trigger.
That is what makes it answerable. A ministry can say how many licensed firearms it has issued, to whom, and under what conditions — and whether any has been traced to the Kavantissa shooting.
Where this sits in the Kavantissa case
Kavantissa, one of the country’s largest tuskers, died on 16 October. A minister has since said the animal died of gunshot injuries. The President has appointed a committee to investigate, and the Prime Minister has called for stronger enforcement against wildlife crime; the vet who treated the animal has resigned after a social media campaign against him, and the Wildlife Department has opened its own inquiry into the treatment.
Rajapaksa also turned to the search for the tusker Agbo, asking why funds could not be allocated for an effective elephant-monitoring system, and called for technology to track elephants and prevent further shootings.
Not reported
The Daily Mirror’s filing carries no response from Dr. Patabendi, who was present for the exchange as the minister being addressed. It gives no number of firearms issued, no scheme name, no period, and no evidence connecting any licensed weapon to Kavantissa’s death.
The newspaper notes in its own words that the allegations “require clarification from the relevant authorities” — an unusual editorial flag, and a fair one: this is a serious charge made under parliamentary privilege, where a speaker cannot be sued for what they say.
No other verified newsroom had filed on the exchange when this report was written. The allegation is reported here as an allegation made in Parliament, and nothing in it has been independently established.
