8 lakhs compensation for white-skinned lady taken into custody for having tattooed-arm!

8 lakhs compensation for white-skinned lady taken into custody for having tattooed-arm!

Supreme Court which heard a fundamental rights petition filed by a British girl saying that she was taken into custody by violating her fundamental rights and detaining her in the cell for 2 days and subsequently expelled her for the offence of having tattooed the figure of a Buddha on her arm for the sake of devotion. Yesterday (15) it was ordered that the state

and the 2 police officers connected to this incident compensate her with a fine and costs amounting to 8 lakhs.

The said petition was filed by a British national, a girl by the name of Miss Nayomi Michelle Colman.The 2 police officers who had directly been involved in violating fundamental rights of this foreign young girl, the petitioner, were ordered to pay Rs. 50,000 each amounting to Rs.1 lakh as compensation from their own pocket and since this has taken place during an action taken by the police, which is a state institution, a fine of Rs. 5 lakhs was imposed and in addition to covering legal costs which she has had to bear, a further payment of Rs. 2 lakhs was ordered to be paid. The verdict in this instance was given by supreme court judge  Anil Guneratna with the approval of the 2 attendant judges Eva Wanasundera and Nalin Perera.

It was mentioned in her petition that she was taken up by the Buddha dhamma and had toured Buddhist countries and from time to time has been participating in Buddhist meditation programmes for a number of years and on the occasion she had set foot in Sri Lanka on 5th April, 2014 and when getting down at Katunayaka a driver with a smattering of English had got together with a police officer nearby and had taken her to the Katunayaka Police and there the 2 officers who were there who did not know English could not understand what she said and that they were uttering something in Sinhala Language and finally she was taken into custody and later was imprisoned in a detention camp at Mirihana for 2 days and was expelled from the country on a court order.