SLA allows EPDP, PA to rig at bridge

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 December 2001, 16:30 GMT]
A lecturer at the Jaffna University and three undergraduates were attacked by an armed gang of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party on the Palam Road near Arasadi junction close to Jaffna. In Batticaloa, a grenade was lobbed at the residence of the Tamil National Alliance candidate Indrakumar Prasanna in the heart of the high security zone in the eastern town. Election officials in Batticaloa said that although the Sri Lanka army claimed that it had barred Tamils from coming through the entry point at Vavunathivu near the eastern town for security reasons, goons of the People’s Alliance and the EPDP rigged thousands of votes at the clustered booths here from morning.

The SLA allowed the paramilitary groups working with it in Batticaloa and the People’s Alliance candidates in the district to bring hundreds of persons in buses and lorries to impersonate voters at the polling booths near the Vavunathivu entry point that the SLA claimed it had sealed this morning.

More than thirteen thousand voters were barred by the SLA from coming to vote in Vavunathivu.

“The SLA has come with the most silly and puerile explanation for preventing our people from exercising their sovereignty and fundamental right which is their franchise. Thousands of people have come through these points before. It is the SLA’s duty to see that there is no untowardly incident. But they have no right at all to deny us our franchise. They are here to guarantee that we can exercise our sovereignty but not to deny us our birth right”, said Mr. Pon Selvarasa commenting on the developments in Batticaloa Wednesday.

In Jaffna, the lecturer and students of the Jaffna University who were attacked in Jaffna were admitted to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. Doctors said that the condition of the sociology lecturer, Mr. Anton Edward Richard, and that of the undergraduate is serious.

Meanwhile, a UNP candidate who was attacked with a sword by the EPDP in Gurunagar in Jaffna, grabbed the weapon from his assailant and chopped off his hand, Police sources in the northern town said.