Family man reported missing in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2011, 01:46 GMT]
A 52-year-old man from Urumpiraay in Valikaamam, Jaffna, has been reported missing since Friday. Meanwhile, human rights activists in Jaffna express fear that there were similar abductions have not been registered by the media as the Sri Lankan police authorities systematically suppress information reaching media on complaints of abductions and disappearances. The ‘effective’ subjugation of Tamils by the militarised Sri Lankan civil administration has silenced the community, from reporting information that could reach human rights activists or journalists as the public fears repercussions from the ‘white-van’ squad.

Mr. Sinnathurai Kugathasan, a shoemaker from Hospital Road, Urumpiraay West, failed to return home after he went to buy firewood from a nearby firewood stall. His family has reported to the Village Officer that it feared Mr. Kugathasan has been abducted.

In the meantime, the Sri Lanka Army commander in Jaffna, Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe and the police shift their explanations from time to time. The latest ‘twist’ from the Sri Lankan Police and the military-led civil administration is that ‘private conflicts’ were behind the escalating abductions.

Hathurusinghe has gone on record saying that the person arrested on Thursday in Jaffna was in possession of papers confirming his EPDP affiliation. The SLA commander also said that the EPDP man was having four wives and that the police was still working on tracing his origins.

While the SLA commander was trying to pass the blame on the EPDP, Douglas Devananda, the leader of EPDP and a minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa's cabinet, has gone on record saying he didn't wish to embarrass the government internationally by raising the fear-psychosis prevailing in Jaffna.

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