TNA parliamentarian protests against human rights violations by SLA

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 September 2006, 21:06 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian and the M P for Vavuniya, Sivanathan Kishore registered strong protest with the Vanni Military Commanding Officer Major. Gen. Edrisinge on Friday for not issuing ‘arrest receipts’ for persons arrested by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vavuniya, said sources. He added in his protest that the SLA which conducted massive cordon and search operations in Vavuniya in the recent past, has failed to notify the relatives of the persons arrested by them during these search operations and condemned the practice of releasing abducted residents, blind folded on to the streets, as serious violations of human rights, added the sources.

The SLA accompanied by armed masked men in Vavuniya arrested about seven residents in a cordon and search operation conducted in the Suntharapuram region in Vavuniya on Friday and five of them were taken away by the SLA.

When anxious relatives contacted Gen. Edrisinghe they were told that nobody had been taken away by the SLA, said the sources.

The TNA parliamentarian in response to this said that uniformed soldiers and masked armed men who accompanied them, had made the arrests.

The parliamentarian further said that the Military Commanding Officer has promised to hold immediate inquiries into the arrests and the 5 taken into custody by the SLA have now been released.

Sivanathan Kishore demanded that the SLA Commanding Officer in future issues ‘arrest receipts’ for the persons detained by them and notifies their relatives with information on where the arrested are being held, said sources.