Another Buddha statue placed near Trincomalee private bus stand

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 June 2019, 18:38 GMT]
A group of persons led by a Sinhala Buddhist monk installed a Buddha statue at the auto-rickshaw parking place located near the private bus stand in Trincomalee city on Sunday morning when the occupying Sinhala soldiers and the settlers were marking Poson Full Moon Poya. The 75 cm high Buddha statue, placed inside a glass cover, has replaced a smaller figure at 20 cm height, Tamil residents said. The move was part of a systematic plan, they said. The smaller statue had been placed at the locality after 2009. Now the extremist section has installed the statue with glass cover, which usually precedes the installation of a giant Buddha statue, the people said.



Hardliners among the Sinhala Buddhists have used this year's Poson decorations in a hostile manner, particularly against the Muslims in the island after the Easter Sunday attacks.

The extremist monks and a group of protesters visited Mullaiththeevu on the occasion of Poson staging a protest, prayer and passed warnings to Tamils who were opposed to the illegal construction of Buddhist temple at the disputed heritage site of Neeraaviyadi in Chemmalai-East along the Naayaa'ru lagoon in Mullaith-theevu.

Poson Full Moon Poya is celebrated to commemorate the introduction of Buddhism to the island by the Buddhist missionary monk Mahinda in the 3rd century BC.

During Norway facilitated Ceasefire, Sinhala extremist monks backed by the SL military installed a Buddha statue close to the Trincomalee central bus stand in May 2005.

The move was widely opposed. The Trincomalee District Tamil Peoples Forum (TDTPF) launched a campaign demanding the removal of the statue.

A month later, on 24 June 2005, unknown attackers lobbed a grenade at the house of Vanniasingham Vigneswaran, who was the president of the TDTPF. He was the key figure in leading the campaign for the removal of the Buddha statue.

Mr Vigneswaran was assassinated on 07 April 2006 at the main branch of the Bank of Ceylon (BoC) located along Inner Harbor Road between the office of the Senior Superintendent of Police and Trincomalee Harbor Police.

The assassination took place when the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) was about to announce the appointment of Mr Vigneswaran as the national list Parliamentarian to fill the position held by Joseph Pararajasingham MP who was slain in Batticaloa.

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