Srilanka, Oct. 3 -- The past fortnight has not been a collection of isolated crime stories. It has been a pattern: a large maritime narcotics seizure in the North, inland heroin and ICE hauls in the West and South, a cache of military-pattern firearms on the outskirts of Colombo, a multi-billion-rupee foreign-exchange fraud through shell companies, and, worst of all, a daylight shooting in Halpethota, Baddegama. Gunmen in a car intercepted a three-wheeler and fired at point-blank range. A man and a woman are dead. Another woman remains critically injured.

These are not good signs for a peace-loving people. Criminals operating in tandem, brandishing firearms, and treating a public road as an execution ground advertise an insecure enviro...