Operation Yukthiya: Sri Lanka Arrests Almost 15,000 Suspected Criminals in Mega Drug Operation

Dec 24, 2023 at 8:10 AM Update: an hour ago

In a mega operation against drugs, Sri Lanka has arrested almost 15,000 suspected criminals in the past week. The police announced this on Sunday. The approach has been criticized because major smugglers remain out of harm’s way.

With Operation Yukthiya, which means justice, the government says it wants to put an end to drug trafficking on the Asian island. According to authorities, the country would be used as a major transit port for drug smuggling.

Last week, the police, together with the army, combed homes and other properties of suspected criminals. Those searches yielded almost 440 kilos of drugs. This includes 272 kilos of hemp, 35 kilos of hashish and almost 10 kilos of heroin.

Sri Lankan media report that 13,666 suspects have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in drug trafficking. Nearly 1,100 addicts were also sent to a mandatory rehabilitation center run by the military.

On images of the local television shows how the police and the army search one house after another with sniffer dogs. The operation was paused for Christmas and will resume from Tuesday.

Criticism of the approach because the ‘big boys’ are left out of the picture

Human rights activists are critical of the mega operation because only the poorer users and dealers are arrested, and not the major smugglers. The police raids are also said to be illegal because they were carried out without search warrants.

“If they had targeted the people in the top positions, larger quantities of drugs would have been seized,” said Sri Lankan human rights lawyer Ambika Satkunanathan on X.

Satkunanathan, who represents the United Nations, calls the 440 kilos of drugs found by police and army small. “Especially compared to the time and resources spent fighting drug use.”

The people of Sri Lanka have been suffering from rising prices of basic products and shortages of medicines for a long time. The reason is the economic crisis the country is in. In an attempt to get out of this situation, it took out a loan of 2.7 billion euros from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last March.

Beeld: Getty Images

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2023-12-24 07:10:37
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