Five schoolboys and 21 women among those on death row

The southern Province has become a hotbed of underworld activities, Commissioner of Prisons and Media Spokesman Jagath Weerasinghe has said, warning that large-scale drug traffickers are destroying the nation’s future.Speaking at a ceremony held in Nawalapitiya, recently, Commissioner Weerasinghe revealed that 826 individuals were on death row in Sri Lanka’s prisons. Among them were five schoolboys and 21 women, he said.

 Weerasinghe described the rise in violent crime and narcotics trade as a “moral collapse,” noting that the South, despite being known as a province with a high literacy rate, had now become a criminal hotspot with numerous contract killings and gang-related activities reported daily.

 “I cannot understand how such an educated society has produced people who kill for money,” Weerasinghe said. “Those who bring drugs into the country on a large scale are destroying the entire nation. They must be hanged.

There is nothing sinful about it.”

Weerasinghe said drug trafficking was at the root of most of the country’s social problems, adding that enforcing the death penalty on major drug lords would serve as a deterrent.

Weerasinghe called for stringent measures to curb the spread of narcotics.

Sri Lanka has maintained a de facto moratorium on the death penalty for several decades, despite capital punishment remaining in the statute books for the most serious crimes. Successive Presidents have refrained from signing execution orders, influenced by human rights considerations, international pressure, and concerns about judicial fallibility.

Public opinion periodically shifts in favour of resuming executions during surges in violent crime, creating a persistent debate between deterrence and humanitarian principles.

Advocates for the abolition of the death penalty argue that life imprisonment sufficiently ensures public safety, while opponents believe executions could curb drug trafficking, murders and other such grave crimes. The moratorium endures as the government weighs justice against human rights.