JDMPGA seeks TNA MPs support to trace missing youths

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 June 2004, 18:37 GMT]
The Jaffna District Missing Persons Guardians Association (JDMPGA) Sunday requested Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians to protest in and outside parliament highlighting the issue of disappeared persons in Jaffna peninsula after being arrested by the security forces during the period of 1996-1997, civil sources said.

The JDMPGA solicited the support of TNA MPs to trace the missing youths, sources said

A decision to this effect was carried out at a meeting of the JDMPGA held Sunday in the auditorium of the Jaffna Multi Purpose Co-operative Society with the President Mr.P.Selvarajah in the chair.

Representatives of Jaffna Mothers' Front also attended the meeting, sources said.

Members said at the meeting that the disappearances occurred when the Peoples Alliance was in power. Every Sri Lanka government that comes to power appoints sub-committees to inquire into the alleged disappearances of arrested Tamil youths but no concrete steps are taken to trace the disappeared.

In conclusion the meeting decided to request the TNA parliamentarians to voice their unanimous condemnation for the inactiveness of the authorities concerned in tracing the disappeared youths.

Jaffna TNA parliamentarian Mr.S.Gajendran said at the meeting that he would co-operate with the JDMPGA in visiting the prisons and detention centres in the south of the country in an attempt to trace the disappeared if they are detained there, sources said.