Eastern lecturers ‘planning to flee’ - paper

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 13 July 2004, 00:01 GMT]
Frightened by possible death threats due to the increasing violence in the east, around ten senior lecturers of the Eastern University are planning to flee the country on Sabbatical leave, the Daily Mirror reported in its Tuesday edition.

A university spokesman told the Daily Mirror these lecturers were to leave as they worked in fear after the Commerce Faculty Dean Kumaravel Thambaiah was shot dead by unidentified attackers at his residence in Gnanasooriya Square in Batticaloa on May 24.

Mr. Thambaiah is thought to have been murdered by cadres of the renegade LTTE commander, Karuna.

He had fled the Batticaloa district after the Karuna faction ordered all people originally from Jaffna to vacate the Eastern Province. He returned after the LTTE crushed Karuna’s rebellion in an offensive over the Easter weekend.

"Now there is no threat to these Jaffna-born lecturers. But they fear possible danger to their lives. That's why they are leaving the country," the spokesman told the Daily Mirror.

Lecturers with ten years' experience can go abroad on Sabbatical leave at the expense of the University Grants Commission, the paper reported. They can take their families with them.