Death threats escalate in Jaffna, doctors flee extortion

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 10:25 GMT]
Death threats from Sri Lanka Army (SLA) backed armed Tamil paramilitary groups, have forced many doctors and medical specialists in Jaffna to complain to Human Rights Commission (HRC) and to leave the peninsula fearing death and abduction of their children and family members while more of them are contemplating flight from the peninsula, civil society sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, an editor of the Jaffna edition of a Colombo based daily has been threatened to death. Paramilitary personnel are targeting the Tamil intellectuals in Jaffna with extortion, abduction and death threats.

Night time phone calls and visits by armed men in the name of a Tamil group, alleged to be part of Karuna group, referring to the name 'Iniya Paarathi', to the doctors were demanding large sums of money and issued warnings of consequences of not complying with the demand, in the form of death and abduction of their children and family members.

However, as the complainants wish to remain anonymous for fear of being abducted and killed, detailed information about the complaints is not made public.

The editor of the leading Jaffna edition of a Colombo based Tamil daily too has been threatened to death by the Iniya Paarathi group armed personnel, for publishing human rights violations in the peninsula, which have reached alarming proportions.

Earlier, the editors of 'Uthayan', another popular Tamil daily in the Jaffna peninsula, have been confined to their office premises, due to death threats from the SLA backed Tamil paramilitary armed men.

In the meantime, majority of the individuals receiving death threats aimed at extortion have opted to remain silent in fear of death from the SLA operated paramilitaries.