Sri Lanka, March 27 -- The Sri Lanka Police has a history of more than 150 years. Since its inception, it primarily took on the role of crime prevention and crime detection. This nation witnessed an insurgency from the South and years later from the North.

In the early 1980s, police stations in the Northern and Eastern Provinces came under attack from LTTE cadres. At this juncture, there was a need for the then Police Department to have a rapid response force with enhanced firepower. It was the late Ravi Jayawardene who fully understood the need to fill this lacuna and laid the foundation for the Police Special Task Force (STF). He is still venerated as the founding father of the STF. His visionary leadership prompted him to take bold de...