STF warns village residents

[TamilNet, Friday, 16 January 1998, 23:59 GMT]
The Tamil village of Puthukkudiyiruppu, about 10 kilometers south of Batticaloa was rounded up this morning by the Special Task Force.

No one was arrested.

But a large number of males who had not regularly gone to sign up at the Kaluwanchikudy camp further south on Sundays and engage in labour for the STF there were singled out and severely warned.

The STF had decided to round up the village as the number of males showing up for signing the register at the Kaluwanchikudy camp had declined recently.

The STF picks out a number of males in a village during routine cordon and search operations in the Tamil villages by the side of the trunk road to Kalmunai, south of Batticaloa and demands that they show up at its camps to sign a register every Sunday.

Those who go are subjected to hard labour.

Those who keep away without sufficient reason are often beaten up by the STF.

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