Grenade lobbed at Batticaloa shop

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 January 2001, 16:49 GMT]
Armed men, suspected to be Sri Lanka army soldiers and Policemen, lobbed a grenade at a grocery store in Sinna Uppodai, a suburb of Batticaloa town around 9p.m. Wednesday, injuring a 19-year old employee of the shop. Neighbours alleged that the attack was in retaliation to the shop owner’s refusal to pay up protection money (‘kappam’) to the assailants.

Sources in Sinna Uppodai said that some soldiers and Policemen in the suburb have been regularly extorting money and goods from the shop-owner, but that he had

refused on Wednesday.

The practice is common in Tamil villages in the remoter parts of the east and some suburbs of the Batticaloa town.

The wounded youth was identified as Thangarasa Sabaratnam, 19. He was admitted at the Batticaloa hospital.