• Letter to Prez Secretariat seeking tabling of CoI report in Parliament 

The Citizens' Power Against Bribery, Corruption, and Waste, a civil society organisation, has filed a complaint with the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), requesting an investigation into the findings of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) report on the alleged youth killings that took place in the Batalanda housing scheme during 1988–1989.

The alleged killings and the related CoI report have resurfaced following a recent interview in which former President Ranil Wickremesinghe was questioned by an international media outlet about his alleged link to the killings.

Speaking to The Daily Morning, the Association's President, Kamantha Thushara claimed that during 1988–1989, 60,000 lives, including that of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) founder Rohana Wijeweera, were lost. "Most of these 60,000 killings are alleged to have taken place at the Batalanda housing scheme. Wickremesinghe, who was a Cabinet Minister at that time, is clearly implicated over these killings in the CoI report."

He charged that former Presidents, including Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa, used the 1988–1989 tragedy to come to power, but added that none of them bothered to prosecute those responsible for the killings. "Kumaratunga appointed a CoI which prepared this report. However, she did not take steps to table it in the Parliament, or initiate the recommended action against those responsible."

Speaking further, Thushara said that now that a JVP-led Government is in power, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the other relevant authorities have a duty to investigate the alleged killings in the 1988-1989 period, and initiate legal action against those responsible including Wickremesinghe. He also said that he handed over a letter to the Presidential Secretariat, requesting that necessary action be taken for the said report to be tabled in the Parliament.

The Batalanda killings refer to a series of alleged extrajudicial killings and human rights violations that took place at the Batalanda housing scheme during 1988–1989, a time of political unrest. It is believed that an unofficial detention and torture centre operated there, targeting suspected members of the JVP during the then Government's crackdown on the second insurgency in the South of the island.