A phone recording said to feature the voice of Minister of Industries and Entrepreneurship Development Sunil Handunneththi is currently circulating on social media, drawing renewed attention to a dispute over several rice containers stuck at the Colombo Port.
The Minister today lodged a complaint with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), alleging that a coordinated campaign of character assassination is being carried out mainly through YouTube channels by distorting his voice and spreading false information.
Handunneththi said the complaint to the CID marks only the first step, and that he intends to pursue a full defamation lawsuit. He claimed that certain individuals, whom he described as having been “rejected by public votes,” have turned to YouTube platforms to discredit public representatives by fabricating stories that last “less than 24 hours” and resemble the exaggerated political dramas of old Tamil and Hindi films.
The controversy escalated after several YouTubers linked the circulating phone recording to claims that he was involved in releasing 323 containers—an allegation the Opposition also echoed, linking the latest incident to the broader controversy surrounding the 323-container saga. Handunneththi maintained that the current story stems from an inquiry made to him about five rice containers that were brought to the port without the required import licences and could therefore not be released. He said the individual who approached him had requested that the containers, which could not be cleared, be taken into government custody and distributed to the public free of charge.
The Minister said he contacted the Director General of Customs for information and then explained to the individual that such a free distribution scheme was not possible because the rice would first have to be confiscated due to the lack of import licences. Even if confiscated and given free, the government would still be required to pay Rs. 8.4 million in demurrage and customs charges. He suggested that the person who brought the matter to him may have initiated the smear campaign after realising the consignment could not be released.
Handunneththi also questioned why the individual had used the name of a United Nations human rights body on a letterhead, adding that the authenticity of this name must be investigated. He insisted that those who manipulated his voice and circulated it on social media had acted with deliberate malice, forcing him during the budget session to spend time providing repeated explanations to the CID instead of focusing on his ministry, which oversees more than 40 institutions.
He said he has nothing to fear from mudslinging and that he and his colleagues are not people who will fall due to slander, noting that history has repeatedly proved this. Handunneththi urged those engaging in the smear campaign to enter Parliament through democratic means and criticise him for any real faults, which he would accept and correct, rather than resorting to fabrications and voice distortions intended to bring him down.
