Complaints against SLA, paramilitary groups made to LLRC in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 October 2010, 06:00 GMT]
Majority of the complaints made to Sri Lanka President’s Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) in Eastern Province are related to persons disappeared after arrest by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Intelligence Unit personnel, and the paramilitary groups of Pillayan (Eastern Province Chief Minister) and Karuna (Sri Lanka Deputy Minister of Resettlement), sources in Batticaloa said. 490 complaints had been made to LLRC Monday in Chengkaladi Divisional Secretariat and six of them were confidential. Meanwhile, the families of disappeared persons in Batticaloa district accused that the LLRC has narrowed down its scope of action only to a selected number of years thus conveniently keeping out the genocide of Tamils in several villages of Batticaloa district in which hundreds of persons had been taken away by Sri Lanka armed forces and the paramilitary groups that operate with them.

The persons who bore witness before the LLRC Monday said that men identifying themselves as SLA intelligence personnel took persons to nearby police stations and released them after interrogation. But masked men arriving the same night had abducted the persons released.

Other complainants said that SLA intelligence personnel had swindled millions of rupees saying that they would release the abducted persons and added that they can indentify the swindlers.

The paramilitary men of Karuna and Pillayan groups had forcibly taken away young men and women in Kiraan, Vaazhaichcheanai, Chengkaladi, Vanthaa’rumoolai and Vaakarai to work for them and that they had threatened to take away the other members of the families when the relatives of the abductees went to appeal in their offices, according to complaints made to LLRC Monday.

Hundreds of Tamils had disappeared during the Tamil genocide by SLA in the villages of Mayilanthanai, Pullumalai, Thoa’nithaaddamadu, Chaththurukko’ndaan, Kokkaddichchoalai, Makizhadiththeevu, Vaakarai in Batticaloa district and Thiraaikkea’ni, Udumpanku’lam, Chinnavaththai, Ka’n’napuram Colony 35, Karavaaku, Veeramunai and Thangkavealaauthapuram in Ampaa’rai district.