MPGA picketing of District Secretariat continues

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 December 2002, 20:11 GMT]
Members of the Missing Persons Guardian Association (MPGA) continued their picketing in front of the Jaffna District Secretariat Tuesday crippling the civil administration for a second day, sources said.

The MPGA demanded that the government expedite the investigation to find out the fate of about two hundred and sixty four youths arrested by the State armed forces in 1996 and 1997 and later reported disappeared.

The picketers blocked the main entrance of the Jaffna District Secretariat preventing hundreds of employees working in the Jaffna DS from entering their offices. The Additional Government Agent Mr.T.Vaithilingam was seen with the picketers, sources said.

The Jaffna Divisional Secretariat also did not function second day, Tuesday due to the picketing.

The MPGA sources said the picketing would continue until they are satisfied that investigation into disappearances will proceed with the urgency it deserved.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka issued a statement in Jaffna stating that it has appointed committee of inquiry headed by retired Government Agent Mr.Devanesan Nesiah to conduct full-scale investigation into the alleged disappearance of arrested youths by the State armed forces.

Amnesty International said in 1997 that as many as 600 people who "disappeared" in the Jaffna peninsula after the Sri Lankan Army moved into the area in 1996, "died under torture or been deliberately killed."