to the Japanese. The mutiny took place partly because of the agitation by the LSSP. The mutiny was suppressed and three of the mutineers were the only British Commonwealth troops to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War. Gratien Fernando, the leader of the mutiny, was defiant to the end. No Sri Lankan combat regiment was deployed by the British in a combat situation after the Cocos Islands Mutiny. The defenses of Sri Lanka were beefed up to three British army divisions because the island was strategically important, holding almost all the British Empire's resources of rubber. Rationing was instituted so that Sri Lankans were comparatively better fed than their Indian neighbours, in order to prevent disaffection among the natives. Lanka Regiment and Hikari Kikan Sinhalese and Tamils in Singapore and Malaysia formed the 'Lanka Regiment' of the Indian National Army, directly under Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. A plan was made to transport them to British Ceylon by submarine, to begin an independence uprising against colonial rule, but this was aborted. The Hikari Kikan, the Japanese liaison office for South Asia, recruited Sinhalese, Tamils, Indians and other south Asians domiciled in Malaya and Singapore for spying missions against the Allies. Four of them were to be landed by submarine at Kirinda, on the south coast of Sri Lanka, to operate a secret radio transmitter to report on South East Asia Command activities. However, they were dropped in error on the Tamil Nadu coast, where they were caught and executed. Free Lanka Bill Public opposition to British colonial rule continued to grow. Among the elite there was irritation at the colour-bar practised by the leading clubs. Sir Oliver Ernest Goonetilleke, the Civil Defence Commissioner complained that the British commander of Ceylon, Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton called him a 'black bastard'. The CNC agreed to accept the Communists, who had been expelled by the Trotskyists in the Sama Samaja Party but who now supported the war effort. At its 25th annual conference, the CNC resolved to demand 'a complete freedom after war'. The leader of the house and Minister of Agriculture and Lands Don Stephen Senanayake left the CNC on the issue of independence, disagreeing with the revised aim of 'the achieving of freedom'. In November 1944, Sir Susantha de Fonseka, the State Council member for Panadura, moved a motion in the State Council calling for a dominion-type constitution for