Tamil student abducted in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 April 2007, 10:18 GMT]
Unidentified persons abducted a fifteen year-old student, a member of a resettled family in Thiriyai, a traditional Tamil village located about 42 km off north of Trincomalee town on April 10 night, according to a complaint lodged by his relatives with the Kuchchaveli Police and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM).

The student has been identified as Kuttan Piraruban.

He had been studying in Thiriyai Tamil Maha Vidiyalayam in Year 9.

On that day at night some unidentified persons had entered his house and took him away forcibly, according to complaint.

Resettled families in the village are now living in fear following the abduction of this student

Thiriyai was the worst affected village in Trincomalee district in the ethnic conflict. The entire village with about one thousand five hundred families fled to other districts and abroad as refugees following the military operations launched by the Sri Lanka Army in 1990. With the signing of the ceasefire agreement on 22 February 2002 by the then Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremasinghe and LTTE leader, V.Pirapaharan, refugees started to return to the village.

Currently about three hundred families have returned to the village and started cultivation. Tamil Maha Vidiyalayam was reopened after a lapse of 12 years in 2003. Currently about two hundred students of the resettled families have been studying in the school.