Troops search Jaffna school

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 October 1998, 18:59 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) rounded up and searched a school in Jaffna today for the first time since it consolidated its hold on the peninsula in early 1996. Troops entered the premises of the Kokkuvil Hindu college this afternoon around 2 p.m. when the school was about to be closed.

Soldiers screened all the students and checked the school premises thoroughly for more than half an hour.

No one, however, was arrested.

But children who had no national identity cards have been asked to come to the Kokkuvil area SLA for questioning tomorrow sources said.

They said that the army has never checked a Jaffna school and its students in this manner before.

Meanwhile a youth suffered serious injuries in his leg this evening in Alavetty in Jaffna around 4.30 when his mini-tractor hit by a land mine.

The youth, identified as Paramananthan Kuhanathan, 17 was transporting firewood for sale in his mini-tractor said his relatives. Kuhanathan is from the village of Maasihappiddy in Sandilippai north.

The boy's leg will have to be completely amputated said doctors who saw him this evening.