The Trincomalee Magistrate’s Court has issued a formal warrant for the arrest of Venerable Balangoda Kassapa Thera after the prominent monk failed to present himself in court to face charges over the unauthorized erection of a Buddha statue along the sensitive Trincomalee coastline.
Magistrate M.S.M. Samsudeen issued the bench warrant during court proceedings, ordering law enforcement agencies to apprehend Kassapa Thera and produce him directly before the court. The magistrate took decisive action after KassapaThera, named as the second suspect in a multi-party police prosecution, and several co-accused failed to appear when the case was officially called for hearing.
The judicial proceedings stem from a high-profile dispute involving the unauthorized construction of religious monuments and structures within a protected coastal zone. Local police originally named 14 individuals as suspects following the unlicensed installation of a large Buddha statue on the beachfront without obtaining mandatory statutory clearances from municipal planning bodies, land administration departments, or the Coast Conservation and Coastal Resource Management Department.
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The installation sparked significant local controversy, triggering formal complaints from state authorities regarding coastal encroachment and procedural violations. When police produced the suspects in court during initial hearings earlier in the year, Kassapa Thera and four other monks were remanded alongside civilian supporters under provisions of the Coast Conservation Act. While the clergy and co-defendants were subsequently released on conditional bail, the underlying criminal charges regarding illegal coastal land development remained pending before the court.
The case took a sharp turn when key suspects defaulted on their bail conditions by skipping court. Alongside issuing the arrest warrant for Kassapa Thera, the Trincomalee Magistrate directed nine other named suspects to report to the Trincomalee Harbour Police Station to submit official statements regarding their involvement in the coastal construction.
Further hearings are now set for January 6, 2027. Building an unapproved monument on a public beach was always going to draw state scrutiny, but skipping the courtroom entirely turned a minor land dispute into a full-blown bench warrant for Kassapa Thera’s arrest.
