Excerpted from the memoirs of Senior DIG (Retd.) Edward Gunawardene
Barely a week had passed after the election ended I was in for a surprise. I received a message from the IGP that I had been appointed as the ASP in charge of the security of the Hon. Prime Minister and His Excellency the Governor-General. As expected Dudley Senanayake had been appointed the Prime Minister and he was in the process of forming the Cabinet. William Gopallawa was the Governor-General. He had taken over from Oliver Goonatilleke after the attempted coup of 1962.
The VIP Security Division fell within the purview of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Police. I was not given any indication as to where I was to take up residence. As the only official police bungalows were the large ‘C’ type houses on Brownrigg Road (now Keppetipola Mawatha) I knew that as a bachelor I had no chance of getting one of these. Furthermore all these were occupied mainly by the DIGs and SPs.
by Sujeeva Nivunhella in London
There was a time Douglas Wickramaratne, President of the Sinhala Association in the UK, had to be given protection by Scotland Yard after he came under threat for exposing the blatant falsehoods propagated by the LTTE to win the support of the international community.
Despite the machinations of the powerful pro-LTTE lobby at the time, the warrior that he was, Wickramaratne held his ground and pushed ahead with his concerted campaign to lay bare the atrocities of the terrorists and expose to the world the campaign of brutal terror perpetrated by the Tigers.
Many were the times he traveled to Geneva to attend the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions to help safeguard the interests of Sri Lanka in the face of Tamil diaspora inspired allegations leveled against the government.