Colombo encourages local politicians to create racial dissention in east

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 May 2011, 02:43 GMT]
A planned move to create dissension between the two communities -Tamils and Muslims- now living with understanidng and in harmony in the Batticaloa district is being orchestrated by the ruling party local politicians with the backing of Colombo authority, sources in the east said. Mr.Ali Zahir Mowlana, Chairman of the Era’voor PS is taking steps to shift the office of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) now located in a building in Ward 5 along Nallathamby Road in Era’voor Chengkaladi DS division to a Muslim suburb in the PS area. Tamil civic groups have urged the Regional Commissioners of Local Government Administrations in Batticaloa and Trincomalee to stop relocating government offices from Tamil areas to Muslim suburbs.

About ten thousand Muslims reside in Era’voor PS but the CEB office located in Era’voor Chengkaladi DS division currently has been serving more than one hundred thousand Tamil people.

Zahir Mowlana is also the district organizer of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the main constituent of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) led by Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse.

It is reported that soon after the assumption of the office Mowlana had suspended minor employees working in the PS office citing reason that they failed to extend support to him at the local election held recently.