TNA demands compensation to Tamil victims of police violence

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 January 2003, 19:14 GMT]
Following a request Tuesday by the Tamil National Alliance that the relatives of the dead and injured during police violence should be paid compensation, Sri Lanka's Prime Minister, Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe, directed the Interior Ministry to submit a report about the victims of violence that took place at Kanjirankuda in Ampara district, an eastern port town in the outskirts of Trincomalee district, and Nelliayadi in the Jaffna district last year.

Mr.M.N.Junaid, Secretary to the Interior Ministry, who participated at the discussion held Tuesday between a TNA parliamentary delegation, headed by Trincomalee parliamentarian, Mr. R. Sampanthan, and the Prime Minister at his official residence in Temple Trees, was asked to collect information about the victims of the violence through relevant district secretaries, TNA sources said.

At Kanjirankuda in the Ampara district, seven Tamil civilians were shot dead by Special Task Force of the Police in October last year. One week after that incident, three Tamil civilians were killed in a grenade attack that took place in a Sinhala settlement in Trincomalee town when Tamils observed a hartal condemning the STF attack on civilians at Kanjirankuda.

Regarding the killing of three Tamil civilians at Trincomalee during the October 11 hartal, Mr. Sampanthan said he was told by the government no impartial inquiry has been held into the deaths of Tamils by the State law enforcement authorities.

"The dead and injured were all Tamils and not a single Sinhalese suffered in this incident. As the police and the army are dominated by the Sinhalese, Tamils were at the receiving end during the violence unleashed in Trincomalee on that particular day," Mr.Sampanthan reiterated.