Sri Lanka on Thursday rejected the UN human rights body’s allegations about the ongoing operation to curb the narcotics menace and challenged it to provide evidence of the alleged excesses during controversial ‘Operation Yukthiya’.

Addressing a press conference, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Public Security Tiran Alles also vowed to continue with the drug bust operation. Alles was reacting to the January 12 statement of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk in the wake of Operation ‘Yukthiya’ (the Sinhala term for ‘justice’) launched on December 17 with a June 30 deadline to end the drug menace plaguing the island nation and arrest all the drug dealers. “We are very concerned that authorities in Sri Lanka are adopting a heavily security-based response to the country’s drugs problem, instead of public health policies grounded in human rights. A staggering 29,000 people have reportedly been arrested on drug-related matters since December 17, with allegations that some have been subjected to ill-treatment and torture,” Turk had said in the statement.

The Sri Lankan minister told reporters: “The Human Rights Commission has a duty to tell us ... these are the incidents and get our answers. Without all that, they issue statements. They can issue statements, but I will not stop this operation.”

“We will go ahead, and we will do it the same way because we know that we are doing something good for the children of this country, for the women of this country,” he added. Conceptualised by Minister Alles and overseen by acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) Deshabandu Tennakoon, thousands have been arrested since the launch of the controversial operation.

Despite its purported anti-narcotic aims, it has come under criticism for various reasons, if the local media reports are to be believed.

Sri Lanka Police have been issuing daily detailed statements related to the operation. It has also set up a hotline for the public to provide information concerning the ongoing anti-drug operation.