Planned omission of Tamils from voters registry alleged in East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 17 June 2012, 20:20 GMT]
As part of its tactics in demographic manipulations, the Colombo government has deleted the names of a section of Tamil voters from the village of Aa'rumukaththaan-kudiyiruppu in Chengkaladi DS division of Batticaloa district, a civil official told TamilNet Sunday. Around 300 names of voters belonging to 138 Tamil families of the village have been deleted from 2011 voters’ register, the official said.

In 1990, Muslim ‘home guards’, a paramilitary operated by the Sri Lankan forces at that time to create divisions among the Tamil-speaking people, evicted all the Tamil villagers from Aa'rumukaththaan-kudiyiruppu.

The uprooted Tamil families have been residing in Era’voor for two decades before resettling back in their native village.

The Tamil official said government officers working in the area were acting against the interests of Tamil people and that they were accepting bribes from the SL government politicians.

In addition to being deprived of their voting rights, the 138 Tamil families omitted from the voters register are not entitled to any form of assistance and relief, he further said.

The District Government Agent and Divisional Secretary are said to have not taken any steps to resolve the issue, even after the families affected by the disfranchisement had made representation to them.

In the meantime, Colombo government's Department of Elections has started revision of Voters Registers for the year 2012.