Fasting farmer says threatened, troops look for flags

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 February 2004, 02:47 GMT]
Mr. Sellakkili Anandaranjan, the Jaffna farmer who began a fast unto death protest Wednesday in Chavakachcheri alleged that some Policemen had threatened with death on Tuesday night. Meanwhile Sri Lanka army troops Wednesday afternoon searched houses on Kachchai Road in Chavakachcheri for lion flags that had been pulled down by unknown persons. No one was arrested and the flags which military had hung along the road to mark Sri Lanka’s Independence Day were not found.

Mr. Anandaranjan speaking to the press

“Policemen went in search of me last night and told my wife that I should come to the Chavakachcheri Police station. Later they saw me and threatened me that the war would start again soon and then I would be killed. They wanted to prevent me from starting the fast,” Mr. Anandaranjan told presspersons in Jaffna Wednesday.

He said he stayed in three different places with his friends and a temple in Meesalai on Tuesday night and the early hours of Wednesday morning before coming to Chavakachcheri to start the fast.

“I feel that they would kill me at some point in the future,” Mr. Anandaranjan said.

The farmer says he will fast to death if the Sri Lankan armed forces do not let him and other displaced families in Jaffna’s Thenmaradchi South Division resettle in their villages which have been garrisoned by the military since December 1999.