Eastern university reopens with VC still held captive

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 January 2007, 21:05 GMT]
Even though Prof.S.Raveendranath, former Vice Chancellor(VC) of Batticaloa Eastern University abducted in Dec 15 has not been released, the university reopened on Monday 29 after being closed for more than a month, and lectures resumed in all faculties, campus officials said. University Senate recently made the decision to reopen the campus. M.Pathmananathan, acting Vice Chancellor appealed to all parties to extend their co-operation for the smooth functioning of the university activities.

Prof.Raveendranath, the former VC was abducted on 15 December in Colombo at Bauddaloka Mawatha by unidentified armed men. Since then his family members, academics, a number of foreign educational institutions have made several appeals for the release.

Karuna paramilitary group, widely believed to be the abductors, however, has denied the allegation. Relatives of the abducted VC said that Government of Sri Lanka has not shown any commitment to get the VC released.

A special police investigation group appointed to investigate professor's abduction has not made any headway.

Since it was believed that the Prof.Raveendranath was not released by the abductees due to non-acceptance of the letter of resignation, University Grants Commission (UGC) two weeks ago announced that the resignation has been formally accepted.

Meanwhile, Dr.Malaravan, the son in law of Prof.Raveendranath in a third public appeal made on Monday has asked for the abductors to release the VC on humanitarian grounds.