4TH LEAD

Nine killed in attack on paramilitary camp

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 April 2005, 02:22 GMT]
At least nine were killed in an attack on the camps of a paramilitary group in Sorivil in the Welikanda area, 80 kilometres northwest of Batticaloa Thursday morning, civilians in the area said. "We can neither confirm nor deny the reports of the attack", a senior military officer in the east said. The bodies of nine paramilitary cadres who were killed in the assault were lying near a river in Sorivil (Soruwila in Sinhala), an interior village in the Polannaruwa district. The ENDLF/Karuna Group set up five camps in the area recently, according to civilians in the area. Three paramilitary camps in Vannathuraiyadi near Sorivil were attacked. The other camps had supplies, according to villagers.

Three ENDLF operatives including 'Vijayan', a senior cadre of the ENDLF, a paramilitary based in South India, were also killed in the attack, informed sources in Batticaloa said.

Five bodies of the paramilitary cadres killed in the attack were found near Sorivil Friday morning, Police sources in Polannaruwa said.

The bodies were later moved to Aralaganwila hospital, Police sources added.

Two paramilitary cadres injured in the attack were admitted to Polannaruwa hospital. The wounded men are identified as Mr. K. Yogarajah and Mr. Sinnathamby Mahendran, Police said.

One of the main camps of this paramilitary group was located in Soruvil, according to civilians in the area. Sorivil is in Aralaganwila Police area in the district of Polannaruwa.

Nordic truce monitors said last week that a paramilitary group accused of gunning down LTTE activists operates from this area with the backing of Sri Lankan armed forces.

Meanwhile, the popular Sinhala daily ‘Lankadeepa’ reported on Tuesday that the paramilitary group had fined some families in Soruwila, Maliyadevapura, Namal Pokuna, Tamil and Sinhala interior villages in the eastern sector of the Polannaruwa district who had not attended a meeting it had called on 11 April.

ENDLF is believed to be operating in the Polannaruwa district with the Karuna Group.

The paramilitary group had organized the meeting for villagers in these remote hamlets near the Polannaruwa-Batticaloa district border to “to instruct them about what should be done in the future”, according to ‘Lankadeepa’.