STF kills 5 Tamil youths in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 25 August 2006, 05:42 GMT]
Sri Lanka Special Task Force (STF) personnel who came from Navatkerny, a suburb of Batticaloa town, where an STF patrol was targeted in a grenade attack, shot and killed five Tamil youths in the nearby New Muhathuvaram Road Cemetery Junction, 3 km northeast of the town, Thursday night around 7:45 p.m. The killings were carried out by STF men as "revenge killings" for the grenade attack, civilian sources said. The STF has claimed that the killed persons were Tigers carrying weapons. Meanwhile, the STF trooper, wounded in the grenade attack at Navatkerny, later succumbed to his wounds when he was airlifted to Colombo hospital, medical sources said.

The STF men went inside a rice-mill, asked for a vehicle, and left the rice-mill as there was no vehicle available. Few minutes later, the STF counter-insurgency men came back to the site, in a Jeep and a truck, and picked five Tamil youths, including a rice mill worker and gunned them down near the railway track in the area, residents said.

Two of the victims were identified as Tharmarajah Anandarajah, 28, the worker from Jegathees Rice Mill, from Senkalady and Soosaipillai Sutharsan, 26, from Punnacholai, Kumarapuram. The other victims, yet to be identified, were from Palameenmadu and Thiraymadu, residents said.

The bodies were handed over to Batticaloa Hospital around 1:00 a.m. Friday.

The STF trooper who succumbed to his wounds Thursday was identified as Hevayalage Jayantha, 25.

According to STF claims, a T-56 rifle, 3 magazines, 3 grenades and a pistol were seized from the killed youths.

The Cemetery Junction in New Muhattuvaram Road is located 3 km northeast of Batticaloa town.