News in brief

[TamilNet, Saturday, 19 September 1998, 18:32 GMT]
Police sources say that the SLA killed a LTTE member in Chavakachcheri today, special investigation team investigating the Jaffna Municipal Council bomb blast arrests 4 employees of JMC, and SLA builds a shed for Nagarkovil school.

LTTE member killed - Police

Police sources in Jaffna said that the SLA killed a member of the Liberation Tigers in a clash today in Chavakachcheri.

The body of a youth was handed over by the army to the Jaffna hospital this evening around 5.30 p.m.

The Police in Jaffna town claimed that the youth was a member of LTTE who was killed in a confrontation with the army on the Kachchai road in Chavakachcheri today.

But SLA sources declined to confirm the clash.

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JMC employees arrested

The special investigation team that flew into Jaffna following the bomb blast in the Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) on September 11th, arrested four suspects, and returned to Colombo with them today for further inquiries.

All four arrested are employees of the JMC, said Police sources in Jaffna. One of the suspects, R. Ratnasingham, is the public relations officer of the JMC.

He had worked there for eighteen years said sources known to him. The others are Shanmugapathy, Vimalachandran (both watchers), and M. Thevasingham (peon).

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SLA builds shed for Nagarkovil school

The SLA in Vadamaradchi east in Jaffna built a shed for the Nagarkovil Government Tamil Mixed School (GTMS).

A non-commissioned SLA officer in the area said that the army wants to earn the good will of the people in Nagarkovil and other nearby villages.

Last week the SLA camp at Nagarkovil made a special offering to the local Naagathambiran temple (which literally means the temple of the Cobra or of the Naagar, considered by some as the forerunners of the Tamils in Sri Lanka).

The offering was made to protect the Nagarkovil SLA from the large number of snakes that has infested the camp despite various efforts by soldiers to get rid of them.

Sources said forty soldiers carried Kaavady, a peculiar form of penance in Tamil religion, to propitiate the Cobra god (Naagathambiraan) of the temple.