Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police Dr. Ajith Rohana, an attorney-at-law and the force’s best-known media spokesman of the past decade, has retired after 38 years in the Sri Lanka Police.
A ceremonial guard of honour was held at the Welagedara Stadium in Kurunegala on Tuesday to mark the end of his service. His official retirement date is September 11; the farewell was held early.
Send-off at Police Headquarters
Updated September 19: Rohana has since been received at Police Headquarters by Inspector General of Police Priyantha Weerasooriya, himself an attorney-at-law, at a special meeting held under the IGP’s chairmanship to extend congratulations on the end of his career. Rohana attended with his family, Hiru News reported.
Career
Rohana holds a distinction in the history of the force as the youngest officer promoted to the rank of Deputy Inspector General. He was born in Kanampella, Kosgama, in the Seethawaka area, and was educated at Ananda College, Colombo, where he was recognised as an accomplished speaker. He joined the police as a Sub-Inspector on 15 March 1988 — the starting point of the 38-year career — and served his probation as Officer-in-Charge of the Vanduramba Police Station.
He later served on United Nations peacekeeping deployments in Sudan and Haiti. While still serving he took his LL.B. from the Open University of Sri Lanka and was sworn in as an Attorney-at-Law of the Supreme Court. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2020.
He became widely recognised across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic while serving as Police Media Spokesman, when his regular briefings on case numbers, curfew rules and quarantine enforcement made him one of the most visible officials of that period.
His postings included Police Media Spokesman, membership of the board of the National Child Protection Authority, and Senior Deputy Inspector General with responsibility for the Southern, North Western and Eastern Provinces.
Context
The retirement removes one of the senior-most officers from a force under sustained scrutiny. A parliamentary select committee questioned police officials last week over the response to Cyclone Ditwah, and the force is dealing with a run of underworld shootings — 34 so far this year, with 17 dead.
Neither outlet names a successor to his provincial responsibilities, and neither says whether Rohana — an attorney-at-law of nearly three decades’ standing — intends to return to legal practice. No verified newsroom had filed on the retirement at the time of first writing; Ada Derana was returning CloudFront 403 errors across its site.
The two accounts differ slightly on his birthplace: Daily Mirror gives Kosgama, Avissawella, while Hiru gives Kanampella, Kosgama, in Seethawaka. Both place it in the same part of Colombo District, Seethawaka being the divisional secretariat in which Kosgama sits. Neither report gives the years of his UN deployments to Sudan and Haiti, nor the ranks he held on them.
