If the doors were opened at that time and the prisoners were sent home, there would be no problem in Negombo - says Vajira.

Former Member of Parliament Vajira Abeywardena states that the recent incident at the Negombo Prison was similar to a tsunami disaster, and authorities had the ability to take a humanitarian step to protect the lives of the prisoners. He made these remarks while participating in a discussion on a YouTube channel.

Further commenting, the former MP stated that by taking the steps implemented at the Matara Prison during the 2004 tsunami disaster as an example, the gates of the Negombo Prison should also have been opened, allowing detainees to go outside. He pointed out that taking such a decision would not cause any harm or risk, and since authorities possess the national identity card numbers as well as passport numbers of the prisoners, there would be a possibility to trace them.

His direct comments regarding this incident are as follows; "Look at the incident in Negombo the day before yesterday. That incident was like a tsunami, wasn't it? What was done during the tsunami? What was done at the Matara prison when the tsunami hit? The Matara prison was opened, and everyone was told to go home. If you want, you can check the numbers. Everyone went home. After about two months, people were asked to report back to the nearest police station. As I recall, only about 5 prisoners went missing."

The former MP points out that if the prison gates had been opened for the detainees to leave instead of losing their lives, no problems would have arisen. He further stated that since the authorities possess the identity information of the prisoners, they could have provided that information to the airport to prevent them from leaving the country, and if a week's time had been given to leave the prison, not a single prisoner would have died.