Mannar SLA shooting victims identified

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 June 2000, 18:20 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army handed over the bodies of five Tamil youth to the Mannar hospital this morning. The SLA told the hospital that the youth were shot dead in a house in Thalvupaadu, four kilometers west of Mannar town, when it was surrounded by troops around 5 a.m. Friday morning on receipt of information that Liberation Tigers were in the village. However, one of the youth shot dead was identified as K. Pirapaharan, a school teacher, by his sister and another was identified by his brother as Victor Sebamalai who had not returned home after reporting to the military intelligence unit at Mannar for an inquiry on May 31.

Naguleswari Karuppaiah, 18, a student of the school Vigneswara Vithiyalayam in Mannar town, identified one of the bodies handed over by the SLA to the Mannar hospital as that of her brother Karuppaiah Pirapaharan, 25, a volunteer school teacher from the hamlet of Sinnakkarukkal in Thalaimannar. She said her brother had not returned home from work yesterday.

The brother of Victor Sebamalai said that the SLA intelligence unit in Mannar had called him (Victor) in connection with an inquiry. Victor Sebamalai had been ordered by the military intelligence to report at its office in Mannar town on May 31. He had gone missing since then, according to his brother.