Premachandran releases photos of SL military-run torture chamber in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 December 2015, 23:04 GMT]
Former Tamil Parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran has released photos taken by him from a former torture chamber operated by the occupying Sri Lankan military in Jaffna to media on Tuesday. The photos show blood-stained walls of a house used as torture cell and the roof of the abandoned house netted inside with barbed-wire. The photos were taken after the occupying Sri Lankan military relocated one of its most dreaded camps, known as 52nd Brigade Head Quarters, from Vara'ni to Kodikaamam in Thenmaraadchi. Describing the photographic traces of the former torture chamber in Vara'ni, Mr Premachandran told TamilNet that he was releasing the photos after the visiting UN working group on enforced disappearances had confirmed his earlier allegations on the existence of a similar torture chamber at Trincomalee Naval base in the East.

The notorious Vara'ni camp was situated at Point Pedro – Kodikaamam Road since 1996 when Jaffna peninsula was captured by the genocidal military of Sri Lanka during the times of Chandrika Kumaratunga. The camp was shifted to a newly seized locality, known as Aasaip-pi'l'lai-eattam, in mid 2014 by former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The owner of the lands at Aasaip-pi'l'lai-eattam has complained that the lands were illegally seized from her.



On Tuesday, the former TNA parliamentarian was demanding the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to conduct independent investigations to uncover the fate of the victims who succumbed at the secret camps and the victims whose skeletons were being exhumed from various mass graves in the country of Eezham Tamils.

The Tamils have no faith in the ‘US-Sri Lanka’ resolution passed in the UNHRC, which has placed the entire investigation in the hands of the Sri Lankan State, Mr Premachandran said.

The SL military had destroyed several houses when it shifted its one km long military base away from Vara'ni, Mr Premachandran told TamilNet.

However, at one the few houses left behind by the SL military, one could spot the traces of a torture cell.

Mr Premachandran alerted by the resettling villagers visited the locality and photographed it to record the evidence when the SL military had moved away from the locality.

There were several torture cells at Vara'ni where the SL military was torturing the abducted people before massacring them, the former parliamentarian alleged.

Human skeletons of massacre victims have been exhumed from Vara'ni area in Thenmaraadchi and in several other localities in the SL military occupied Jaffna peninsula.

More than 55 human skeletons were exhumed from Thirukkeatheesvaram mass grave in Maanthai division of Mannaar district last year. The exhumation of Mannaar killing fields is still not complete.

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