News in Brief:

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 April 1999, 19:36 GMT]
Sri Lankan Army grants permission for refugees wanting to return home; Fisherman's boat strays into Sri Lankan Navy no go zone; Bomb alert in Batticaloa court.

Refugees allowed to return home

Thirty families who were displaced from the village of Vattakandal by artillery and mortar fire from Operation Ranagosa ll have been allowed home by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) today.

The families fled to Madhu from their village during the initial phase of operation Rnagosa II.

The 30 families had appealed to the SLA asking that they be allowed to return to Vattakandal that is still under the control of the Liberation Tigers.

The SLA took them to Uyilankulam and then allowed them to proceed to the their village, five kilometres Northeast from there.

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Fisherman escapes but looses equipment

Velvinayagam Nagulesvaran, a fisherman from Uduththurai on the Southeastern coast of Jaffna lost all his fishing equipment when his boat was carried into the SLA's No-GO Zone in the sea off Vettilaikerni yesterday.

The army had open fired on him after he had entered the No-Go Zone in the sea south of Uduththurai.

V. Nagulesvaran had escaped death by abandoning his equipment.

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Bomb alert in Batticaloa Court

The court in Batticaloa was searched and checked by the SLA and Police today following a tip off from an anonymous caller who had warned that there was a bomb in the premises.

People were stopped from entering the court complex which is close to the SLA brigade headquarters in Batticaloa.