TRO to compensate victims of Trinco 'hartal' violence

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 December 2002, 14:16 GMT]
The Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) will compensate the families of victims of the hartal (general shut down) violence on October 11 in Trincomalee town when three tamil civilians were killed and several injured, sources in the eastern town said.

Three Tamil civilians, S.Mayooran of Anpuvallipuram, S.Konalingam of Ghandinagar and N.Sasitharan of Palaiootu were killed and more than forty civilians were wounded in a grenade attack on the hartal day during a clash between groups of Sinhalese protesters and Tamil groups observing hartal.

The hartal was being held to condemn the killing of Tamil civilians at Kanjirankuda in Ampara district in eastern province by the Special Task Force (STF) of the Police on Wednesday 9 October.

The relatives of the dead and the wounded are to be compensated by the TRO, Trincomalee district branch at a function scheduled to be held on December 27 morning at its office. Trincomalee district TNA parliamentarian Mr.R.Sampanthan, national list parliamentarian Mr.K.Thurairetnasingham are expected to attend the function.

The amount of compensation will be announced on the day of the event, TRO officials said.

At the magisterial inquest held into these deaths has revealed that when the police attempted to disperse crowds of Tamils and Sinhalese converged at Abeyapura on the hartal day, unidentified person from the Sinhala side of the crowd threw a grenade into the assembled Tamils, killing three and wounding several others. Witnesses alleged in evidence that police also fired at Tamils. The inquest is proceeding.

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