A group of environmentalists has said the hands of some members of the government’s top brass are stained with the tusker Kavantissa’s blood, naming two ministers and saying the President cannot escape responsibility either.

Environmentalist Nanyanaka Ranwella told a media briefing on Wednesday that many are responsible for negligence in the treatment of Kavantissa, and that Agriculture Minister K. D. Lal Kantha and Environment Minister Dhammika Patabendi are among them, the Daily Mirror reported at 11.12 a.m. on Thursday.

“It is essential to probe and determine the real wrongdoers and accordingly it is important to find out who is responsible for negligence. We say Ministers Lal Kantha and Patabendi are responsible. Even President Anura Kumara cannot get away from it,” he said.

Those in government could be forgiven, he added, only if a proper investigation establishes who was at fault and they are brought to book.

A new allegation about the manner of the shooting

Ranwella also said there are reasons to believe Kavantissa was shot after he collapsed, and that investigations should confirm or dismiss the suspicion.

That is a claim about sequence, and it has not appeared in this thread before. Environment Minister Patabendi told Parliament on 20 October that the tusker died of gunshot injuries, having initially recovered before falling ill again. Nothing published to date establishes whether the animal was shot once or more than once, or at what point. Ranwella offered no evidence for the claim and framed it as a question for investigators.

A second allegation: a rice mill on an elephant corridor

Ranwella said a rice mill is to be built on land where elephants move — a corridor he said is used by around 300 elephants. The plan was drawn up about ten years ago, he said, and Mahinda Rajapaksa, then President, decided against it on the basis that it would be a crime. The present government intends to proceed with it.

He did not name the location. No government response is carried in the filing.

The rest of the briefing

Rukshan Jayewardene said Sri Lanka should follow Kenya’s approach to conserving elephants and tuskers, noting that Kenya has a special force kept on duty around the clock to protect them.

Ranwella said a plan to safeguard Sri Lanka’s forests as a whole, covering elephant and tusker conservation, has been drawn up and will be published soon. The Wildlife Conservation forum announced a photography exhibition in tribute to Kavantissa, showing images of him and other elephants, at the Lionel Wendt from 2 to 4 November.

Where this sits

Kavantissa collapsed in a paddy field in the Siyambalangamuwa Yaya 3 area and died on 16 October while under treatment for a gunshot wound. Four separate bodies are examining the death or the treatment: a presidential expert committee, a three-member Wildlife Department committee given a month to report, a CID criminal investigation, and the parliamentary select committee the opposition has sought.

The two ministers named have been in this argument before. Namal Rajapaksa alleged in Parliament on 20 October that Patabendi supplied the firearms used to shoot animals raiding chena cultivations. The treating veterinary surgeon resigned after a social media campaign against him.

Thursday’s briefing is the first in this thread to put responsibility directly on named ministers and the President from outside Parliament.

Not reported

The filing carries no response from Lal Kantha, Patabendi, the President’s office or the Department of Wildlife Conservation. It does not identify the organisation Ranwella and Jayewardene represent, give the date or venue of the briefing beyond “yesterday”, or say how many environmentalists took part. It gives no location for the alleged rice mill, no basis for the 300-elephant figure, and no documentation for the claim that a decade-old plan was rejected by the then President. It does not say what evidence underlies the suggestion that the tusker was shot after collapsing.

The allegations are those of the speakers. None has been established by any of the four inquiries, none of which has reported.

A note on spelling. The Daily Mirror writes the tusker’s name Kawantissa; this archive uses Kavantissa, and The Island has used Kawanthissa. All refer to the same animal. The Daily Mirror’s filing also renders the Environment Minister’s surname as both “Patabendi” and “Palabendi” within the same report; this desk uses Patabendi, the spelling used throughout its own coverage.

Single source. This desk checked the Hiru News homepage rail and the NewsFirst homepage listing; neither had filed on the briefing at the time of writing. Ada Derana has returned an HTTP 403 to this desk for some 48 consecutive days and could not be consulted.