A 28-year-old Tamil man, recently deported from the UK was found killed in Trincomalee on 18 April, news sources in the district told TamilNet Saturday.
In the meantime, in a systematic combing operation launched by the special units of Colombo’s military and police establishments, up to 300 Tamil males and females have been ‘arrested’ and sent to military detention camps in Welikanda and Vavuniyaa since last Saturday, April 21
Among the victims are also people who have recently returned from Tamil Nadu and they too have now ended up in Welikanda and Vavuniyaa, the sources in Trincomalee further said.
Easwarathasan Ketheeswaran, forcefully sent back from the UK in 2010, was living alone at Paalaiyoottu in Trincomalee city.
Completing hotel management studies, he was making arrangements to leave the island seeking foreign employment. His wife is living abroad in the UK.
On 18 April, he was visiting his aunt and went out for shopping.
When he returned he had reportedly told his relatives not to go out as strange persons were wandering around the house.
But, he was killed when he left the house later, the sources said.
Last year, SL military establishment let lose a so-called ‘Grease devil’ violent campaign threatening the security of Tamil women in the island.
The ‘white-van’ disappearances are a well-known legacy of the Rajapaksa regime. But, the present trend seems to be the use of a knife.
Another foreign returnee from Quatar was knifed to death by a motorbike squad in a Sri Lanka Army camp in Vadamaraadchi last Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the week before last, the military and police units that had come from Colombo to launch the combing operations in the district were taking lists of recently deported people from abroad, the details of returnees from Tamil Nadu and details of ex-LTTE members who were released by them earlier, the sources further said.
Although the official explanation for the combing operations by the SL military was that it was targeting former LTTE members who had not undergone the Sri Lanka government ‘rehabilitation’ programme, the arrests that have taken place during the nights in the previous week have also targeted those who were not members of the LTTE, civil sources further said.
On 21 April, a delegation of TNA parliamentary group leader R Sampanthan, which was in Kumpu’rup-piddi was interrupted by the people asking Sampanthan to intervene to save the people being arrested and being sent to detention.
Sampanthan visited the SL Police station at Kumpu’rup-piddi and returned empty-handed with the explanation that the police authorities in Trincomalee were pointing their fingers at their hierarchy in Colombo.
The SL military has also taken an English teacher from Champoor.
Despite the earlier reports that around 200 Tamil men and women were sent to detention, the civil sources in Trincomalee city now say that reports reaching from several remote villages indicate that around 300 Tamils have been taken.
At Kumpu’rup-piddi alone, more than 40 Tamils have been arrested and sent to detention by the genocidal Sri Lankan military.
• Sri Lankan military intelligence resorts to liquidate Tamil youths it suspects by using different means in recent times, human rights activists in Jaffna said, citing a brutal killing that took place last Tuesday at Vathiri Junction of Nelliyadi in Vadamaraadchi.
The killer squad followed 28-year-old Sivarooban Sivagnanam, who had returned from Qatar six months ago when he was on his way to Manthikai hospital from his house in Koththiya-kaadu in Tho’ndaimaanaa’ru, taking food to his hospitalised father.
The squad that followed Sivaraoopan on a motorbike, knifed him to death in broad daylight near a Sri Lanka Army camp located near the Vathiri junction, residents said.
The pattern of the killer squads nowadays is to use swords and knives so that it will look like acts of ‘normal crimes’. The squads avoid deploying guns.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s former Attorney General and present advisor to the SL cabinet, Mohan Peiris, who was also a key member of the Sri Lanka government’s delegation to Geneva in March was cited saying two weeks back that the return of criminal activity in Jaffna is a sign that things are back to normal.
The incident last Tuesday also shows the monitoring carried out by Sri Lanka military intelligence on people coming back from abroad.
The killing comes in the wake of a youth, 18-year-old Sivalingam Sivakumaran, a student from Kerudaavil village in Vadamaraadchi North of Jaffna district, who was reported missing since 13 April, was found slain inside a bush on 18 April, 2km away from his house.
Giving an interview to Colombo media Lakbimanews on 12 April, Sri Lanka’s former Attorney General Mohan Peiris came out with the following observation on crimes in Jaffna:
‘For 29 years there was no crime in Jaffna because it was heavily militarised and there was no room for criminal activity by civilians.
‘The indication that there is criminal activity is indicative of the restoration of peace. The amateur robber, the thief is back at work. The pickpocket is back at work, there are rapes, murders.
‘In other words, civilian misdemeanours inclusive of criminal wrongs are taking place. The extra security that Jaffna has enjoyed to make it a sterile place today is no longer there.
‘In other words, there is a complete restoration of civil life and behaviour of civilians includes criminal behaviour which was hitherto suppressed because of regimentation.
‘That is for the community to set up its own mechanisms and the local police to deal with it like in any other part of the country. Today Jaffna is like any other part of the country where people are living, laughing and dying.’
The former Attorney General, as he defends the genocide carried out by the Sinhala state in the international forums, sets stage for getting excuses to the criminality of the occupying military, civil activists in Jaffna said.
• Following a court order to close down two KP-run centres for war orphans in Vanni for their mismanagement, Selvarasa Pathmanathan alias KP, functioning in the custody of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, and the SL Defence Establishment plan returning with their ‘child management’ activities by exploiting the names of the former social institutions of the LTTE, news sources in Vanni said.
By using the names, they also aim at claiming funds from international donors and attracting money from gullible sections in the diaspora, the news sources further said.
The district judge of Mullaiththeevu, Prabhakaran, has recently ordered the closure of the KP-run orphanages after finding serious mismanagement and fearing abuse of children.
But last Thursday, backed by Sri Lanka Military, KP opened another orphanage at Mu’l’liyava’lai, in the name of a former LTTE facility.
Two KP-run orphanages in Jaffna and Point Pedro were also closed down earlier and the children were transferred to other safe centres after courts found them mismanaged.
The orders were made despite threats from sources close to the Sri Lanka Defence Establishment.
The two KP-run centres closed down in Vanni were repeatedly warned about their lack of basic facilities and over-crowded accommodation. But the management of the centres, citing its close connections with the SL Defence Establishment, used to threaten the civil welfare officials pointing to such issues.
Even when a case was filed at the Mullaiththeevu District Court, the management of the centres failed to answer queries. The district judge, finding valid reasons, ordered the closure of the orphanages.
In retaliation, KP now thinks of reviving his activities through opening new centres, using the names of the former LTTE institutions for children and elderly, such as Bharathi Chi’ruvar Illam, Kaantharoopan A’rivuch Choalai, Chegnchoalai, Punitha Poomi etc.
He plans six to ten such centres, news sources in Vanni said.
The SL Defence Establishment that usually frowns at any traces of the LTTE has given special permission to KP to revive these names, the sources further said.
