The cremation of Ven. Daranagama Kusaladhamma Nayake Thera was held recently at the Independence Square with state honours. However, the organizers had initially planned to erect the funeral pyre in another section of the Square. 

The construction work on the funeral pyre was underway when suddenly a top khaki-uniformed one had showed up and told the organizers that they should not erect the pyre at the site they had chosen.

Perturbed over this unexpected order, a former army chief who was a member of the organizing committee had made an appeal in vain to the cop concerned to allow the work on the funeral pyre to proceed. Later he had spoken to an officer of a higher rank and the cop concerned had refused to heed the latter’s request too. 

So finally the organizers were compelled to shift the pyre to another site on the Independence Square, they say.