Tension in Akkaraipattu over Police shooting

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 March 2005, 11:14 GMT]
Tension prevailed in Akkaraipattu Wednesday after a Muslim youth was shot by Sri Lanka Police in the town around 2 in the afternoon. The youth was riding a motorbike with a colleague when Police opened fire on him at Fiscal Junction in Akkaraipattu town, 64 kilometres south of Batticaloa. A large number of Special Task Force commandos and Police were deployed as tension mounted in the town over the shooting. A Police officer in the town told TamilNet that his men had stopped the youth at a checkpoint and were compelled to open fire as he did not heed them.

The wounded youth, Mr. Athambava Mohammed Ali, 28 was admitted to Akkaraipattu hospital. He is a resident of Ninthavur, about 50 kilometres south of Batticaloa.

Mr. Athambava’s friends and relatives said that the Police had opened fire on him deliberately and irresponsibly.

“They could have pursued him and told him to stop. Or fired in the air”, one of them told TamilNet.

The Police officer in Akkaraipattu said that his men had aimed at the motorbike’s tires but had shot the man in the leg by accident. “It was not deliberate at all”, he told TamilNet.