2ND LEAD (Adds details)

SLA searches offices of Jaffna daily

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 April 2007, 13:32 GMT]
Administration and Publication offices of Jaffna Tamil daily, Yarl Thinnakkural ("Daily Voice") was cordoned off and searched by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers Sunday morning, civil sources in Jaffna said. This is the third time SLA has intruded into the offices of the daily after 11 August when renewed hostilities broke out between SLA and the Liberation Tigers.

A number of soldiers were seen circling the area five minutes prior to the swoop on the newspaper office, eye witnesses in the area added.

Large number of SLA soldiers occupied the Editors office, Computer department, printing, administration and advertisement section.

The troops spent considerable length of time searching through the documents focusing their attention on the computer section. Hundreds of photographs to be used for publication was confiscated by the troops during the search, sources said

Yarl Thinakkural is the Jaffna publication of Colombo-based daily Thinakural.

The Sri Lanka military said the search was part of a larger search in areas between KKS road and Kasturiar road.

However, residents and traders said that no houses were searched in the vicinity of KKS and Kasturiar road, and that the offices of the Tamil daily was specifically targetted by the SLA.