The Batalanda Scandal: A Torture Camp’s Ghost Resurfaces in Sri Lanka

The Al Jazeera Spark That Ignited a Firestorm

On March 6, 2025, the airwaves crackled with tension as former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe sat across from Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan on Head to Head. Throughout his career, Mehdi Hasan has been recognized for his sharp interviewing skills, ability to tackle complex topics, and commitment to holding power to account

The Batalanda torture camp, a shadowy detention center from the late 1980s where hundreds of suspected Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) rebels were tortured and killed during a brutal insurrection. Hasan pressed Wickremesinghe, citing the 1998 Batalanda Commission Report that named him a “main architect” in securing the site and suggested he “at the very least knew” of the atrocities—beatings, electric shocks, waterboarding, and executions. Wickremesinghe’s response was a bombshell of denial: “There was no report,” he insisted, adding it was never tabled in Parliament. The internet erupted. X posts branded him evasive, clips went viral, and a long-buried scandal clawed its way back into Sri Lanka’s consciousness.

What followed was a cascade of revelations, political maneuvers, and voices from the past, turning a decades-old controversy into a defining moment for a nation still grappling with its violent history. Here’s how the story unfolded—and what it means for those caught in its web.
Batalanda Sparks and Five: The Unraveling of a Cover-Up

The Al Jazeera interview was just the beginning.

Five key sparks fuelled the Batalanda controversy’s explosive resurgence, each peeling back layers of silence and impunity.

Spark 1: Wickremesinghe’s Denial Backfires

Wickremesinghe’s claim that no report existed was a misstep that ignited fury. The Batalanda Commission Report, published as Sessional Paper No. 1 in 2000, had long been a public document—albeit one ignored by successive governments. His flustered denial, replayed across X and mocked as “cringe-worthy,” prompted his office to announce a “special statement” for March 16, 2025. But the damage was done, and the nation demanded answers.

Spark 2: The Government Strikes Back

On March 14, 2025, Sri Lanka’s new government, led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, seized the moment. Leader of the House Bimal Ratnayake tabled the report in Parliament, contradicting Wickremesinghe’s assertion and exposing decades of political suppression. Ratnayake pledged to send it to the Attorney General, appoint a presidential committee, and hold a two-day debate. It was a bold move by a JVP-rooted administration, turning a dusty archive into a weapon of accountability.

Spark 3: Voices from the Shadows

As the report hit Parliament, survivors and families of Batalanda’s victims broke their silence. On March 11, News 1st aired ex-military officer Indrananda de Silva’s chilling account: he’d photographed detainees before their killings, witnessing torture in houses near Wickremesinghe’s residence. The commission’s records—detailing burnings, waterboarding, and executions—suddenly had faces and names, amplifying calls for justice from groups like the Frontline Socialist Party.

Spark 4: The JVP’s Redemption—or Reckoning

Dissanayake, a JVP veteran whose party lost thousands to state violence in the 1980s, now held the reins of power. The irony wasn’t lost on anyone: the victims of Batalanda were driving its revival. Yet, the JVP’s own bloody past—murders and terror during its 1987-1989 uprising—cast a shadow. On X, critics questioned if this was justice or revenge, putting the National People’s Power (NPP) coalition under a microscope.

Spark 5: A Political Chess Game

Behind the scenes, Wickremesinghe’s rivals smelled blood. The NPP, FSP, and even Western voices on X hinted at a coordinated push to dismantle his legacy—and that of the Rajapaksas—ahead of future elections. The scandal became a cudgel, with Tamil Guardian framing it as “state terrorism” and journalists like Frances Harrison urging global scrutiny. Political score-settling, it seemed, was as much a driver as truth.
Ranil Wickremesinghe: A Legacy Under Siege

For Wickremesinghe, the Al Jazeera interview was a trap he walked into blind. The commission had painted him as complicit—securing Batalanda’s site, directing police like Douglas Peiris, and ignoring the screams from torture chambers. His March 16 statement loomed as a make-or-break moment. Would he double down, risking legal peril as the Attorney General reviewed the report? Or concede, shredding his statesman image built over six premierships and a presidency from 2022 to 2024?
The stakes were brutal. Public fury, fueled by X posts and media, branded him a symbol of impunity. A conviction—however unlikely given past leniency, like Peiris’s five-year sentence in 2009—could end his career. Even without charges, the stain on his United National Party (UNP) legacy might bury his electoral future, especially if the NPP pressed its advantage.

The NPP and JVP: Justice or Hypocrisy? 

For the NPP and its JVP core, Batalanda was personal. Dissanayake’s rise in 2024 on a reformist wave had promised a reckoning with Sri Lanka’s dark past, and tabling the report delivered. The JVP, once hunted at Batalanda—where estimates peg 5,000-10,000 deaths—now wielded power to right those wrongs. It was a redemption arc that resonated, especially with younger voters tired of corruption.
But the JVP’s own ghosts lingered. Its insurrection had left civilians dead, a fact opponents on X wielded to challenge its moral high ground. Could the NPP govern without being seen as vengeful? Success in prosecuting Batalanda’s architects could cement its dominance, but any misstep—favoring JVP grudges over broader justice—risked alienating moderates wary of its radical roots.

The Web of the Accused: Beyond Wickremesinghe

The scandal’s tendrils stretched beyond Wickremesinghe, ensnaring a cast of enablers and executioners:
Douglas Peiris: The Peliyagoda police chief housed at Batalanda, convicted in 2009 for abductions but lightly punished, was a key operative. De Silva’s testimony tied him to cover-ups.

Police Brass: Officers like Keerthi Athapattu and Nalin Delgoda ran anti-subversive units, their illegal detentions condemned by the commission.

Vincent Fernando: Wickremesinghe’s caretaker gave “damning evidence” in 1998, only to die mysteriously at 36 days before his boss testified—a loose end never pursued.

Chandrika Kumaratunga: The ex-president who launched the commission in 1995 but shelved its 750 copies in 2000, her inaction—possibly to leverage Wickremesinghe—drew fresh ire from Ratnayake.

Sunil Perera (“Gonawala Sunil”): A UNP thug tied to Wickremesinghe, his role hinted at the era’s reliance on criminal muscle.
Their fates now hung on the Attorney General’s next move, a test of whether Sri Lanka could finally confront its systemic rot.
A Nation at a Crossroads (#a-nation-at-a-crossroads)

As the parliamentary debate loomed, Batalanda became more than a scandal—it was a mirror. The NPP’s push signaled a break from decades of impunity, but its narrow focus on Wickremesinghe left broader crimes, like Tamil war atrocities, untouched. Families demanded closure, not just talk, while global voices on X—think Frances Harrison and Human Rights Watch—called for UN intervention.
The story wasn’t over. Wickremesinghe’s Sunday statement could shift the tide, the Attorney General might unearth new evidence, and the NPP could either rise or stumble. For Sri Lanka, Batalanda was a ghost demanding reckoning—one that might finally force a nation to face its past, or haunt it yet again.