Police attack civilians in retaliation

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 January 1998, 23:59 GMT]
A shop was destroyed and several others nearby damaged by the Sri Lankan Police in Kaluwanchikudy, 20 kilometers south of Batticaloa, after two of their colleagues were shot dead by the Liberation Tigers this morning around 8.30 a.m.

The LTTE removed two T-56 assault rifles from the dead Policemen.

Fifty civilians, most of them passers by, were severely assaulted and arrested by the Police. Other civilians in the area were also beaten up.

A constable who was injured in the LTTE attack has been admitted to the Ampara hospital.

Sources in Kaluwanchikudy town said that three Police constables were at a Batticaloa tea boutique which is 50 yards from the main STF camp to the south and 200 yards from a key Police camp to the north when the LTTE had fired upon them, killing two on the spot.

The dead constables were identified as S. Dissanayaka and G. Sujeeva.