Police order Kalmunai Muslim youths to surrender weapons

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 September 2010, 16:07 GMT]
Officer-in-Charge of the Kalmunai Police warned this week that legal action will be taken against Muslim youths who fail to surrender their weapons and continue to engage in unlawful activities. Kalmunai Police have asked the Muslim youths who underwent military training under the leadership of late Muslim leader M. H. M. Ashraff to surrender their arms to the mosques in Kalmunai immediately to avoid arrest, legal action and imprisonment. During the second Eelam War that began on 11.06.1990 the Government of Sri Lanka gave military training to Muslim youths under the leadership of late M. H. M. Ashraff, founder President of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and provided them with machine guns.

The then government used armed Muslim youths under the name of Home Guards to operate with government armed forces against Tamils. The military trained home guards assisted the Sinhala army in oppressing the Tamils in the districts of Batticaloa and Ampaa’rai.

The home guards in connivance with the Sri Lanka Army carried out attacks on Tamils in the boundary villages of Maiyilanthanai, Punaanai, Thiyavedduvaan, Meeravoadai, Vallaichchenai, Earaavoor, Chaththurukko’ndaan, Araiyampathi, and Chinnavaththai in Batticaloa district and in Veeramunai, Thangkavealaauthapuram, Karavaku, Thiraikkear’ni, Udumpanku’lam in Amparaa’rai district.

Some of the home guards formed the Jihad Movement later. This movement had worked not only against Tamils but also against Sinhala people.

It is reported that former LTTE cadres who left with Karuna Ammaan in 2004 had sold their weapons at cheap prices to Muslim youths in Oaddumaavadi, Earaavoor and Kaaththaankudi areas.