People who refuse to cooperate with police inspections of houses or vehicles will face immediate legal action, Police Spokesman ASP F.U. Wootler warned on Thursday.
Addressing the media, Wootler urged the public to extend full compliance to officers carrying out searches under the ongoing national programme to curb organised crime and drug peddling. He said the programme involves house-to-house and vehicle inspections in high-crime and drug-affected areas across the island, alongside arrests and follow-up investigations, and stressed that public cooperation was vital to its success.
Failure to cooperate with officers lawfully conducting such inspections will result in immediate legal action, Wootler said.
The warning underscores the intensity of enforcement activity unfolding under the government’s flagship anti-crime offensive, which has continued to roll out roadblocks, raids and arrests over recent weeks. Police have framed the campaign as a sustained, island-wide operation rather than a one-off drive, with Wootler appearing repeatedly to issue progress updates and policy reminders.
The Police Department’s most recent disclosure put the total under the rolling anti-narcotics operation Rata Ekata at 156,456 arrests and 1,917 kilograms of heroin seized over six months — the first publicly confirmed aggregate since the campaign launched in October 2025. Wootler also recently represented Sri Lanka Police at the Interpol conference in Lyon, France, where international cooperation on cross-border drug and crime networks was a central theme.
Thursday’s warning aligns the public-compliance message with the rolling crackdown rather than introducing new powers — police already hold statutory authority to search and seize where reasonable suspicion exists, and obstruction is already an offence. The signalling effect is to make clear that physical or procedural resistance at the door or roadside will be treated as a chargeable matter, not a grey area.
