Registration to precede Hindu worship

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 November 1997, 23:59 GMT]
The Sri Lankan army has stipulated that all devotees who wish to attend the daily noon pooja at the Maviddapuram Kandasamy Kovil will have to submit their name, address and national identity card number five days before the day on which they wish to visit the temple.

The army had earlier stipulated that only two hundred devotees would be allowed to attend the daily noon pooja at the temple.

The new regulation follows problems in recent weeks when more than two hundred devotees had managed to push their way past army sentries at Tellipalai on the Kankesanthurai road.

The temple comes under the expanded Sri Lankan military base complex which encompasses Maviddapuram, Palaly, Kankesanthurai etc.,

The army is apparently worried that the LTTE could infiltrate into the base with ease if it allows a very large number of devotees to visit the temple daily.

The temple was opened to the people of Jaffna as part of a public relations exercise which the army began experimenting with, since late 1996.

The approach of the LTTE's Maveerar week, which has seen attacks on the army in the peninsula go up, has alerted the army to possible areas of infiltration.