-By LeN Political Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -02.June.2025, 11.00 PM) It was a sunny Monday in Jaffna, birds chirping, immigration forms being stamped, and somewhere between baggage claim and the duty-free chocolate rack at Palaly Airport, a 75-year-old Tamil returnee was arrested under Sri Lanka’s national security provisions.
Normally, such events warrant a short press release, a shrug from the Department of Immigration, and a few WhatsApp forwards. But this time, the arrest was accompanied by the arrival of a far more visible figure: M. A. Sumanthiran, senior attorney, former MP, and part-time national security commentator, who emerged visibly agitated and ready for legal warfare, moral outrage, and—for good measure—a press conference or two.
According to Sumanthiran, the elderly man in question had spent decades in a UNHCR refugee camp in Tamil Nadu, and had only returned to Sri Lanka after his granddaughter convinced him to witness her wedding in Point Pedro. Instead, he found himself greeted not with jasmine garlands, but with a CID escort.
Sumanthiran took to microphones faster than a budget speech delay.
“This is outrageous. This man is 75 years old. He’s not a threat to national security. He can barely threaten a goat crossing the road.”
And just like that, we were off to the races.
The headlines wrote themselves:
“Tamil Grandfather Arrested at Palaly Airport”,
“Returnee Detained by CID Under ‘Security Concerns’”,
and most poetically, “A Homecoming in Handcuffs.”
Cue civil society murmurs, diaspora outrage, and of course, Sumanthiran’s media blitz, portraying the arrest as a blatant violation of basic rights. “This isn’t national security,” he thundered on local television. “This is national insecurity.”
Well said. Stirring. Empathetic.
But wait.
If Sumanthiran's impassioned defence of Tamil refugees being probed by the state sounds principled, we’d all be applauding. But for those with better memories than goldfish, his Easter Sunday performance in 2019 still lingers like the burnt incense of a forgotten poya day.
Back then, in the immediate aftermath of Sri Lanka’s worst terrorist attack since the war, Sumanthiran—then a sitting MP—embraced the role of national inquisitor with gusto. As a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) probing the attacks, he led a no-holds-barred offensive not just on the perpetrators, but—how shall we put this delicately—the entire Muslim political class.
The PSC summons read like an ethnic audit.
Former Minister Hisbullah was called. Then others.
Some were grilled about school textbooks, others about mosque speeches, and some about vague “extremist affiliations” that turned out to be WhatsApp forwards and shared addresses.
During that time, Sumanthiran was less Gandhi, more McCarthy. He didn’t shy away from insinuating that “radicalisation” had crept into Muslim civil society, and often presented anecdotal claims as national security gospel.
Fast forward to 2025, and here he is again—this time with tears of justice in his eyes, waving a travel itinerary and a doctor’s note to prove his client’s frailty.
Consistency, as they say, is for shampoo bottles.
Now, here’s the dull but important bit: any individual flagged in the Sri Lankan immigration system—especially those long absent and returning from foreign camps—will automatically be referred to the CID for basic screening. It doesn’t mean guilt, it doesn’t mean persecution—it simply means that, in a country which has battled three armed uprisings and more assassinations than an average Shakespeare play, officials are slightly twitchy.
The process is standard. The names are vetted against lists—compiled from various sources including Interpol, intelligence briefings, and, yes, unverified political hunches. If cleared, the individual is sent home with a “welcome back” and perhaps a cup of tea. If not, they’re kept for questioning.
The arrest of Sumanthiran’s client wasn’t random; it was procedural.
And here’s where it gets rich: this is the exact type of system Sumanthiran once advocated for—in Parliament, on record, and on repeat.
Post-Easter, he argued that national security architecture had become too relaxed, that intelligence must act on any and all information, and that returnees from foreign radicalised environments should be screened “vigorously”.
But when the scanner beeps for a Tamil returnee?
Cue violin music and a press conference.
It’s one thing to evolve. It’s quite another to reverse your own script when politically convenient. In his zeal to champion national security post-Easter, Sumanthiran didn’t just paint with a broad brush—he upended entire paint shops.
He repeatedly implied that Sri Lankan Muslims had allowed “extremist ideology” to fester, using language dangerously close to collective blame. While extremists like Zaharan Hashim were indeed responsible for the Easter carnage, Sumanthiran’s political performance made little effort to differentiate between radicals and the broader Muslim community.
He seemed all too comfortable blaming in bulk, calling Muslim MPs to the PSC stand as if they were all co-authors of a terror plot rather than victims of it.
The bitter irony? Today’s Tamil refugee being detained is not suspected of plotting a bombing, but is merely flagged for past associations and long absences—something Sumanthiran once said must be “reviewed in the national interest.”
So when he says now, “This is a human tragedy,” we must ask—was it not a tragedy when innocent Muslims were dragged through Parliament based on mere suspicion?
Will M. A. Sumanthiran apologise to the Muslim community for past blanket accusations?
Unlikely. Apologies in Sri Lankan politics are rarer than budget surpluses.
But there is a growing chorus—especially online—demanding exactly that.
“It was the Rajapaksa military intelligence, not Muslims, that orchestrated the Easter attacks,” says a prominent civil rights lawyer, referencing the increasingly credible claims of state complicity in the 2019 bombings.
“Where was Sumanthiran when this truth emerged? Silent. Or worse, still defending his earlier narrative.”
And there lies the real problem: politicians like Sumanthiran, who position themselves as defenders of justice, must be consistent—or risk becoming the very hypocrisy they once decried.
You can’t have it both ways. Either you believe in equal scrutiny for all, or you don’t.
Either you stand for due process for every community—or your protests are nothing more than ethnic tribalism cloaked in legalese.
For all his eloquence, Sumanthiran today stands diminished. No longer an MP, and with his party internally fractured, his appearances in public forums increasingly feel like a man out of step with the times—a political lion whose roar has become a whimper.
His attempt to turn a routine CID screening into a civil rights spectacle reeks of opportunism—especially when the same man once roared for tighter immigration surveillance on others.
Worse still, his moral compass appears selective, flickering only when the subject fits his political lens.
Perhaps this is why critics have begun to suggest—only half-jokingly—that if Sumanthiran is so disillusioned with Sri Lanka, he might as well move to India, whose refugee policy he often praises. There, he can continue his work for Tamil refugees, unhindered by CID desks or media fact-checkers.
Sumanthiran has long presented himself as Sri Lanka’s conscience-in-a-suit—the legalist, the rights defender, the Colombo cocktail-circuit’s darling who also knew how to stand with the oppressed.
But what the Palaly incident reveals is a deeper rot: the ease with which even the so-called principled can abandon their own values, depending on who is under the microscope.
Was his client’s arrest necessary? Maybe not. Could the CID have handled it with more tact? Probably.
But is this the “Erosion of Democracy” that Sumanthiran claims? Let’s be serious.
This is a procedural flag.
Not a persecution campaign.
And it is precisely the sort of procedure he once thunderously demanded.
So the next time M. A. Sumanthiran holds a press conference and says he’s outraged, we should politely ask:
“Are you outraged because it’s wrong, or because this time, it’s someone who looks like you?”
Until then, his national security tears remain—tragic, but not terribly convincing.
-By LeN Political Correspondent
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by (2025-06-02 19:20:49)
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