Police arrests 39 civilians in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 July 2007, 00:14 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Police, in a joint pre-dawn cordon and search operation, arrested 39 civilians, many of them Sinhalese, in Mount Lavinia, a suburb of Colombo on Sunday. The operation covering more than 250 houses began at 3:00 a.m. and lasted for three hours, local residents said.

Many of the arrested did not have identity cards, the Police claimed.

Two members of an underworld group hiding in an abandoned house too were also arrested with weapons during the operation. Police said the two is suspected to have involvement in many crimes in the area.