SLA denies arresting youths

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 January 1998, 23:59 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has denied arresting two youths, taken into custody by soldiers from Valaichenai paper mills camp on Wednesday at Peythalai, near Valaichenai 30 km north of Batticaloa.

The parent who had gone in search of the boys yesterday told TamiNet that the army at the paper mills camp had informed them that they had not arrested their sons.

The two youths S. Sundaram (20)and Kamaleswaran (22) are students at the Government Vocational training Centre at Vantharamoolai, 17 kilometers north of Batticaloa. The whereabouts of the boys are still not known.

Meanwhile two civilians identified as Natkunam Chandrakumar 22, an employee of the Chenkalady Co-operative Society and T. Thanabalasingham were admitted to Batticaloa hospital on Wednesday with severe concussions after being beaten up by the SLA at the Mavadivembu camp, 22 kilometers north of Batticaloa.

Soldiers of the camp who had been angry about a time bomb that had gone off the night before at a spot where they normally rest while on route clearing patrols in the area, had assaulted the two who were passing by the detachment on their way to work next morning.