6 November 2022 09:22 pm Views - 5998
In response to the article that appeared in the Daily Mirror online, titled 'Shehan rubbishes Rajpal’s plagiarism claims', journalist Rajpal Abeynayake has sent the following statement.
“Shehan’s claim is that this matter should not be brought up at a celebratory moment for the country’s writers, is symptomatic of the sense of entitlement of a person who has no respect for the rights of others.
It’s rich he has the audacity to say it. It’s like a drunk driver running over a man, and when told he’d be arrested replying: “but it’s our celebratory moment - we were celebrating a Sri Lanka cricket victory — how dare you want to arrest?” To clarify, it’s the huge sense of entitlement harboured by a person not used to doing things the proper way to say the very least. He also states that he has sent my manuscript to some persons and institutions. It’s not just amusing but telling that he kept somebody else’s manuscript which he allegedly didn’t need, for eleven years, and kept it so handy and ready to send at a moment’s noice. Shehan Karunatillaka has also contended that he sent my manuscript to various persons and was thereafter cleared of plagiarism. It’s his version and there is time to judge the veracity of that, also to say the very least. On the issue of his book ‘Seven Moons of Mali Almeida’ being plagiarized from my manuscript, I stand by my original position," he reiterated.