Burnt body of youth recovered in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 August 2006, 05:18 GMT]
A body of an unidentified youth, with gun shot wounds, whose face was burnt with tyres to hide his identification, was found by Jaffna Magistrate R.K.Viknarajah at Potpathy Road, Kokkuvil in Valikamam area, in front of the LTTE's former Cultural Wing office, Tuesday morning, sources in Jaffna said.

Local residents alerted the Jaffna Magistrate after hearing gunshots and noticing an object burning the previous night around 11.30 p.m. The magistrated visited the scene with the Police, and recovered the half-burnt body.

The body was handed over to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital for identification.

Sri Lankan Forces were accused of this type of execution, during the JVP uprising in the South in late 80's in which thousands of Sinhalese youths were killed and burnt after placing used tyres around the body.

In Batticaloa also, in early 90's, a number of Tamil youths were killed in the same style by an Sri Lankan Army (SLA) elite group called "Green Tigers" created by late President Premadasa to take revenge on his opponents.

However, this is the first time a similar killing has happened in Jaffna, civil sources said.