The heads of both of Sri Lanka’s principal monastic chapters raised the imprisonment of Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera with visiting prison officials in Kandy on Friday — and the officials told them nothing has been decided.
A delegation of senior prison officials, including Commissioner of Prisons (Operations and Media) Senaka Palletenna, paid a courtesy call at the Asgiriya Maha Viharaya, where the Asgiriya Chapter’s Mahanayake, Most Ven. Warakagoda Sri Gnanarathana Thera, asked whether any procedure existed to secure Gnanasara Thera’s release, the Daily Mirror reported.
Palletenna replied that no definitive decision had been made on the matter to date. Hiru News carried the same exchange, describing the Mahanayake Thera as requesting that action be taken to release the monk.
A second, structural request at Malwathu
The officials then called on the Malwathu Chapter’s Mahanayake, Most Ven. Tibbatuwawe Sri Sumangala Thera, who raised something different: he proposed establishing a separate facility to hold Buddhist monks who are remanded or imprisoned over allegations.
The Malwathu Mahanayake Thera said the proposal had been discussed before without a final decision, and stressed the need for a place where monks could be accommodated appropriately and perform religious observances without hindrance. Only the Daily Mirror reported this part of the day; Hiru’s filing covers the Asgiriya meeting alone.
Where this sits in the dispute
The request is a further step away from the issue the campaign began with. The original grievance was prison attire, and the government conceded it — an interim order amending Departmental Order 550 allows monks robes when leaving prison premises, alongside a new regulation giving the Commissioner General ten days to consult Buddhist Affairs on admissions. The committee behind those changes handed its interim report to the ministry on 14 October, a day ahead of schedule, and the Mahanayake Theras were named as reviewers of that work on 11 October.
Robes were settled; release was not. Monks camped outside the Presidential Secretariat have been demanding Gnanasara Thera’s freedom, and a Colombo Fort magistrate barred 54 of them from the premises on Friday morning. Friday’s two meetings put the same demand to the prisons department through the monastic hierarchy rather than the street, and add a request — a dedicated facility for monks in custody — that no filing in this archive has recorded before.
Update: it was a briefing, not a courtesy call
A third account, filed by NewsFirst, reframes the purpose of the visits. The Daily Mirror and Hiru both present them as a courtesy call at which the Mahanayake Theras raised Gnanasara Thera. NewsFirst reports that the delegation went to brief the senior clergy on proposed amendments to the regulations and standing orders made under the Prisons Ordinance, including new provisions on the treatment of members of the Maha Sangha and other religious leaders who are remanded or imprisoned.
On that account the visits were the consultation step itself — the Mahanayake Theras being walked through the committee’s proposals in their capacity as named reviewers of that work.
The amendments are heading for the gazette
Palletenna told the clergy that the prisons department had so far acted under the Prisons Ordinance as it currently stands, but that with the amended regulations expected to be gazetted, a new procedure would be introduced for clergy entering the prison system.
Under the proposal as he described it, ten days would be allowed when a monk is admitted to prison, giving the relevant religious authorities time to consider the circumstances of the case and decide what action they wish to take. Only after that process would prison authorities proceed further.
This is the same ten-day window the committee’s interim report proposed as Regulation 356A — but described here as a step now awaiting gazetting rather than a recommendation under consideration. NewsFirst’s framing places the decision closer to settled than the earlier filings did.
It also answers part of what this article recorded as unreported: the delegation was not simply paying respects, and it did carry the government’s proposals with it.
A note on the spelling and the rank
NewsFirst renders the commissioner’s name two ways within a single article — “Palletenne” in its opening paragraph and “Palliatenne” thereafter — and gives his title as Prison Commissioner and Spokesman, where the Daily Mirror has Commissioner of Prisons (Operations and Media). This article keeps the spelling used across our earlier coverage. The variation is a transliteration and style difference, not two officials.
Update, 18 October: the separate facility already exists — and there are 63 monks in prison
A fourth account, published by The Island on Sunday, answers the central question this article left open and supplies a figure no previous filing carried.
Palletenna told the Malwathu Mahanayake Thera that a special ward for the clergy already exists at Welikada Prison. The Malwathu proposal was therefore not met with “no decision” but with the department’s position that the thing being asked for is already in place — a response none of the three 16 October filings recorded. The Island also characterises the Malwathu Mahanayake Thera as appearing to accept the court verdict against Gnanasara Thera while asking whether a separate section could be established, which distinguishes his request from the Asgiriya demand more sharply than the earlier accounts did.
At least 63 convicted Buddhist monks are currently held in Sri Lanka’s prison system, according to The Island. That is the first number attached to the monastic prison population in this archive, and it bears directly on the list of jailed monks the Department of Prisons forwarded to Buddhist Affairs the following day — whose size this newsroom recorded as unreported. The two figures are not stated by any outlet to be the same count, and The Island’s “at least” leaves it open.
What Palletenna actually undertook to do
On the Asgiriya demand, The Island goes further than the Daily Mirror’s “no definitive decision”. It reports that prison authorities have no power to release or pardon convicts, and that Palletenna undertook to convey the request to the relevant government authorities. That is a referral, not a refusal, and it is the only account of the exchange that says what happens next.
The Island also carries the Asgiriya prelate’s words directly: “There is no point in talking about this and that… The entire country has been shaken. He must be released.”
A third figure for the Presidential Secretariat order
The Island reports that 34 monks named in a Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court order to vacate the vicinity of the Presidential Secretariat ended their protest and dispersed after lunch on Friday. This does not reconcile with the order as recorded in this archive, where 54 people were barred — of whom 30 were monks, the rest politicians and civil representatives. Whether 34 counts a different group, a different order, or is simply at odds with the earlier breakdown is not resolvable from the filings; the figures are reported here side by side rather than merged.
Newswire’s account, filed on 16 October, matches the Daily Mirror and Hiru on the substance of both meetings and adds nothing beyond them. It carries neither the Welikada ward response nor the 63 figure.
Still not reported
No newsroom says who arranged the visits, or when the amended regulations are expected to be gazetted — NewsFirst reports only that gazetting is expected, with no date attached. (The department subsequently moved by departmental circular rather than by gazette, which leaves the gazetting question open rather than answered.)
Now that the department has said a clergy ward already exists at Welikada, the unanswered questions move on: no filing says how many of the 63 monks are held in that ward, whether Gnanasara Thera is among them, or why the Malwathu Chapter considers the existing provision inadequate. Nor does any account say whether the department regards the existing ward as satisfying the committee’s recommendations, or as separate from them.
