GRIEF AND DISBELIEF
“When I heard about the clash, I thought he’s only hospitalised, he will come home,” Perera said, holding back tears. “I never dreamt this would happen.”
“He has a five-year-old daughter and an eight-month-old son. He was more like a brother to me and we were very close. He looked after everyone in the family. He didn’t deserve to die like this.”
After a postmortem in Negombo, the seven bodies – covered in the Sri Lankan flag – were escorted by police to the Welikada prison in Colombo to be handed over to their families. White flags fluttered outside the prison gate and dozens of officials lined up to pay their last respects.
Initial investigations show the fight started when a few prisoners leaked information on efforts to smuggle drugs into the prison to prison officials, Minister of Justice and National Integration Harshana Nanayakkara told parliament on Tuesday.
The Negombo prison housed about 2,400 inmates despite only having a capacity for about 650, according to the Committee for Protecting Rights of Prisoners, resulting in severe overcrowding.
Previous incidents of prison violence in Sri Lanka included a riot in November 2020 that left 11 inmates dead and a riot in 2012 in Colombo that left 27 dead.
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