White van armed men abduct Tamil youth, woman in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 April 2009, 04:32 GMT]
Unidentified armed men arriving in a white van abducted Saturday around 3:00 p.m a 52-year-old Tamil woman from her house at Pankudaave’i in Karadiyanaa’ru after assaulting her and on Thursday armed men in police uniform in a white van forcibly took away a Tamil youth from Ka’napathi Nakar in Chengkaladi, in Batticalao, sources in Batticaloa said.

The woman abducted Saturday is Kasupathi Saroja, 52, a resident of Pankudaave’li in Karadiyanaa’ru.

Saroja’s relatives said that the armed men who abducted her said that they were from police intelligence department.

The youth abducted Thursday is Shanmugarajah Kamalanantharaja, 25, of Ka’napathi Nakar, Chengkaladi.

Kamalanantharajah is being detained at Morokodaanchcheanai Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camp.

Seven Tamil youths had been abducted or gone missing in March alone in Batticaloa district, sources in Batticaloa said.

Besides, at least five Tamil youths are arrested daily in the search operations conducted by SLA and no information is given about their whereabouts, the relatives of the youths said in their complaints to the Tamil National Alliance parliamentarians in Batticaloa.