3RD LEAD

TRO Batticaloa office attacked, one dead, two injured

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 September 2005, 16:09 GMT]
A 70-years-old storewatcher was killed when two motorbike-riding men lobbed grenades at the Tamil Rehabilitation Office located on Station Road near Batticaloa Railway station around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, police said. TRO in a news release said that the attackers fired with automatic rifles for 35 minutes at their office where the watcher was killed and two TRO's Technical Officers were injured. The attackers had lobbed at least three grenades at the TRO office, according to the Police. There are two Sri Lanka Army sentry points within 100 meters from the TRO office.

The dead man was identified as Mr. Thambyappa Velauthappillai. He was working as storewatcher at the TRO office.

The injured officials were admitted to the hospital.

Mr. Velauthappillai is a resident of Boundary Road, Batticaloa.

The previous attack at TRO Batticaloa District Office took place on June 13, 2005 at 8:50 p.m. and occurred in a similar manner with grenades and automatic weapons fire, TRO observed adding that the Wednesday's attack is the 4th attack on the TRO's Batticaloa District Office since the Ceasefire Agreement between the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka.

The organisation has urged the Sri Lankan authorities to fully investigate the attacks.