SLA photographs Jaffna University students at night

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 November 2008, 19:49 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army entered the Ananda Cumaraswamy Hostel Saturday night with sniffer dogs during the hours of power-cut and intimidated students at the University hostel, photographing all of them, according to the Jaffna University Students' Union (JUSU). The University Society, which includes the Vice Chancellor, the academics, staff and the JUSU condemned Monday in separate statements the harassment by the military. The episode comes following reports of a former student of the Jaffna University, who had been earlier subjected to intimidation and threats by the soldiers and ended up as militant, died during a confrontation with the SLA on Saturday.

The SLA troops while interrogating the students during the search, photographed them, the JUSU press release charged.

Purusothaman, who died at Mu'l'li in Ariyaalai, a coastal suburb of Jaffna, was earlier a student leader who was later forced into hiding, according to the sources at the University.

"Prushothaman had been continuously threatened to death, and the same persons who had threatened him are responsible for his killing," the JUSU said in the press release.

Meanwhile, Jaffna University Vice-chancellor and faculty deans in a press release said that these recent incidents have seriously disturbed the students who already face various types of hindrance due to the prevailing abnormal situation in the peninsula.

Reaching a permanent political solution will help the students to pursue their educational activities in a peaceful atmosphere, the release said.

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