99 Tamil civilians arrested in Matara district

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 March 2009, 06:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police took 99 Tamil civilians into custody Sunday in a joint cordon and search in Akuressa and Morawaka in Matara district on a tip that the suicide bomber involved in the recent Akuressa bomb blast had spent several months in an estate in the district. Meanwhile, Matara police had earlier arrested 19 Tamils, most of them upcountry residents, in connection with the Akuressa bomb blast,They are being detained and interrogated on Defence Ministry detention orders, Matara police said.

Nearly 3,000 Tamil civilians were subjected to severe interrogation while around 1,000 houses were searched in the Sunday operation.

The arrested are being detained in the police stations in the respective divisions as they failed to prove their identity and justify their presence in the location searched.