SLA requests student attendance reports

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 April 1999, 09:19 GMT]
The principals of six schools from Amban to Maamunai on Jaffna's south-eastern coast have been instructed by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) at Naagar Kovil to report on the attendance record of their pupils.

The SLA called the school principals for a meeting at its camp in Naagar Kovil at 10.00 a.m. yesterday to issue the orders on screening students and keeping a tab on their activities.

The army officers told the principals that they should immdiately report any student who had stayed away from school for a week.

The SLA also instructed them to report forthwith on students who leave school and to hand over without delay to the local military camp their (the students') papers and identity cards.

A principal who was at the Nagar Kovil SLA camp for the meeting yesterday said that the army thinks that school children in the area from Amban to Maaunai which is not under its control are joining the Liberation Tigers.

He deplored that students who leave school for higher or better education in other parts of Jaffna will have a problem because of these army regulations.

Such students will have to now go to SLA camps to get clearance and obtain their school documents the principal said.

Meanwhile, the SLA ordered the managers of all the Multi Purpose Co-Operative Societies (MPCS) in those parts of Vadamaradchi east that are not under its control to report to the Naagar Kovil camp at 4 p.m. this afternoon.

At the meeting the managers will be issued a set of instructions to help the army keep track of the sale and distribution of essentials in the area so as to prevent the LTTE groups operating in Vadamaradchi east from obtaining supplies.

There are 16 MPCS outlets in those parts of Vadamaradchi east that are not currently under the control of the Sri Lankan Army.

The SLA has already issued several regulations severely restricting the supply of food and medicine to these parts.