“Nai Miris Justice Burns the OIC”

Colombo’s gossip grapevine is buzzing — and this time it’s not about a minister’s son or a secret deal, but about a village police boss who thought he could play god with a boy’s life.

The Supreme Court yesterday didn’t just slap former Acting OIC Inspector Weerakoon of Hatharaliyadda with a judgment — it rubbed raw nai miris straight into his pride. The man who once strutted around as if untouchable now stands exposed as a torturer of a 16-year-old boy.

Court records spill the chilli: Weerakoon crushed nai miris on a handkerchief, mixed it with water, and squeezed the burning extract into the child’s eyes. And while the boy writhed, this so-called guardian of the law laughed, saying the punishment would be worse than anything “Allah” could give.

The charge? A cheap jewellery theft the boy was later acquitted of by the Galagedera Magistrate. But the real theft was of his dignity. For days, the minor endured beatings on the soles of his feet with a heavy wooden pole, locked away without being shown to a Magistrate, without even his mother being allowed near him.

Yesterday, the three-judge bench — Justices Janak De Silva, Menaka Wijesundera and Sampath B. Abayakoon — turned the tables. They ordered Weerakoon to pay Rs. 300,000 to the boy and Rs. 75,000 to his mother. A bitter pill for a man now branded as the OIC who used nai miris not for curry but for cruelty.

And just to rub it in, the Court told the IGP to remind every cop in the country: if you arrest a minor, their parents must see them within six hours. No exceptions. No excuses.

For Weerakoon, the sting of nai miris may fade from the boy’s eyes — but the shame of being remembered as the OIC who tortured a child with chilli juice will follow him forever.