News in Brief:

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 February 1999, 12:52 GMT]
Sri Lankan Police has instructed road sentry points in Jaffna to check vehicles belonging to Tamil Para Military groups, Army moves to limit price rises and Shortage of birth certificates in Mullaitivu.

Paramilitary vehicles to be checked

The officer in charge of the Sri Lankan police in Jaffna town, S.Mark, issued instructions to all road sentry points in Jaffna that vehicles belonging to Tamil Para Military groups should be checked and registered.

The instructions were sent out following the discovery that the PLOTE had brought the severed head of the Karaveddy youth through several army checkpoints from Vadamaradchi to Jaffna town.

Currently paramilitary groups are allowed by the SLA and the police to past through their road blocks and sentry points in the Jaffna peninsula without checking or registration which are a must for civilian and Government Department vehicles.

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Army moves to limit price rises

The Sri Lankan Army Head Quarters in Palaly in Jaffna has requested the Jaffna Traders Association to provide details of traders who have recently received supplies of dry chillie transported by the cargo ship the Ocean Success.

SLA sources said that the measure had been taken to bring down the price hike of dry chilli in the peninsula. Six thousand bags of dry chilli were transported from Colombo.

A kilo of dry chilli is sold at Rs.400/- in the open market.

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Shortage of birth certificates in Mullaitivu

Officials at the registrar of births and deaths in the Mullaithivu district said that they are unable to provide birth certfificates because there is a shortage of forms in the office.

Government officials at the Ministerial level in Colombo had not sent the required number of forms to issue birth certificates, they added.

People in the area need certified copies of birth certificates for various reasons from seeking admission in schools to applying for passports.

Sources said that the Colombo officials had despatched a big quantity of forms to issue copies of death certificates.