Facing the riot of 1915 which broke out between Sinhalese Buddhists and Ceylon Moors, he authorized the use of draconian measures, including summary execution, flogging and imprisonment. Sinhalese leader Anagarika Dharmapala was arrested and his legs broken while in police custody. His younger brothers, Dr. Charles Alwis Hewavhitharana and Edmund Hewavitarne, were also arrested. The latter was subsequently sentenced, in what British Liberal political Phillip Morrel characterized as a miscarriage of justice, to life in penal servitude at Jaffna Prison, where he would die on 19 November 1915 from enteric fever, contracted due to insanitary conditions and lack of medical care at the prison. E. W. Perera, a lawyer from Kotte, braved mine- and submarine-infested seas (as well as the police) along with George E. de Silva to carry a secret memorial initiated and drafted by Sir James Peiris in the soles of his shoes to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, pleading for the repeal of martial law and describing atrocities claimed to have been committed by the police led by Dowbiggin.